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PSYCHOANALYSIS 
SLEEP  and  DREAMS 


__ „Z!1 

PSYCHOANALYSIS  AND  BEHAVIOR 

By  Andre  Tridon 

"Tridon    applies     the    psychoanalytical 
doctrine  to  a  number  of  everyday  prob- 
lems, a  business  that  ought  to  be  under- 
taken  on   a   far   more   extensive   scale. 
His  chapters  on  the  psychology  of  war 
hysteria  and  of  comstockery  are  acute 
and  constructive." 

— H.  L.  Mencken. 

"His   presentation   of  psychoanalysis   is 
admirable." 

— New  York  Medical  Journal. 

$2.50  net  at  all  booksellers 

ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  PUBLISHER,  N.Y. 

PSYCHOANALYSIS 
SLEEP  and  DREAMS 


BY 

ANDRfe  TRIDON 

Author  of 

''Psychoanalysis,  its  History,  Theory  and  Practice' 

and  "Psychoanalysis  and  Behavior" 


"Nothing  is  more  genuinely 
ourselves  than  our  dreams." 

Nietzsche. 


NEW  YORK       ALFRED  •  A  •  KNOPF       1921 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  Inc. 


PaiNTBD   IN    THE    UNrrBD   STATES    OF    AMBEICA 


FOR 
ADELE  LEWISOHN 


^0« 


I  wish  to  thank  Dr.  J.  W.  Brandeis,  Dr.  N.  Philip 
Norman,  and  Dr.  Gregory  Stragnell,  for  valuable 
data  and  editorial  assistance,  and  Mr.  Carl  Dreher 
who  lent  himself  to  many  experiments. 


PREFACE 

St.  Augustine  was  glad  that  God  did  not  hold 
him  responsible  for  his  dreams.  From  which  we 
may  infer  that  his  dreams  must  have  been  "human, 
all  too  human"  and  that  he  experienced  a  certain 
feeling  of  guilt  on  account  of  their  nature. 

His  attitude  is  one  assumed  by  many  people, 
laymen  and  scientists,  some  of  them  concealing  it 
under  a  general  scepticism  as  to  dream  interpreta- 
tion. 

Few  people  are  willing  to  concede  as  Nietszche 
did,  that  "nothing  is  more  genuinely  ourselves  than 
our  dreams." 

This  is  why  the  psychoanalytic  pronouncement 
that  dreams  are  the  fulfilment  of  wishes  meets  with 
so  much  hostility. 

The  man  who  has  a  dream  of  gross  sex  or  ego 
gratification  dislikes  to  have  others  think  that  the 
desire  for  such  gross  pleasure  is  a  part  of  his 
personality.  He  very  much  prefers  to  have  others 
believe  that  some  extraneous  agent,  some  whimsi- 
cal power,  such  as  the  devil,  forced  such  thoughts 

[ix] 


Preface 

upon  him  while  the  unconsciousness  of  sleep  made 
him  irresponsible  and  defenceless. 

This  is  due  in  part  to  the  absurd  and  barbarous 
idea  that  it  is  meet  to  inflict  punishment  for  mere 
thoughts,  an  idea  which  is  probably  as  deeply 
rooted  in  ignorant  minds  in  our  days  as  it  was  in 
the  mind  of  the  Roman  emperor  who  had  a  man 
killed  because  the  poor  wretch  dreamed  of  the 
ruler's  death. 

We  must  not  disclaim  the  responsibility  for  our 
unconscious  thoughts  as  they  reveal  themselves 
through  dreams.  They  are  truly  a  part  of  our 
personality.  But  our  responsibility  is  merely 
psychological;  we  should  not  punish  people  for 
harbouring  in  their  unconscious  the  lewd  or  mur- 
derous cravings  which  the  caveman  probably 
gratified  in  his  daily  life;  nor  should  we  be  bur- 
dened with  a  sense  of  sin  because  we  cannot  drive 
out  of  our  consciousness  certain  cravings,  biologi- 
cally natural,  but  socially  unjustifiable. 

The  first  prerequisite  for  a  normal  mental  life  is 
the  acceptance  of  all  biological  facts.  Biology  is 
ignorant  of  all  delicacy. 

The  possible  presence  of  broken  glass,  coupled 
with  the  fact  that  man  lacks  hoofs,  makes  it  im- 
perative for  man  to  wear  shoes. 

The  man  who  is  unconsolable  over  the  fact  that 
[x] 


Preface 

his  feet  are  too  tender  in  their  bare  state  to  tread 
roads,  and  the  man  who  decides  to  ignore  broken 
glass  and  to  walk  barefoot,  are  courting  mental  and 
physical  suffering  of  the  most  useless  type. 

He  who  accepts  the  fact  that  his  feet  are  tender 
and  broken  glass  dangerous,  and  goes  forth,  shod 
in  the  proper  footgear,  will  probably  remain  whole, 
mentally  and  physically. 

When  we  realize  that  our  unconscious  is  ours 
and  ourselves,  but  not  of  our  own  making,  we  shall 
know  our  limitations  and  our  potentialities  and  be 
free  from  many  fears. 

No  better  way  has  been  devised  for  probing  the 
unconscious  than  the  honest  and  scientific  study  of 
dreams,  a  study  which  must  be  conducted  with  the 
care  and  the  freedom  from  bias  that  characterize 
the  chemist's  or  the  physicist's  laboratory  ex- 
periments. 

Furthermore,  dream  study  and  dream  study 
alone,  can  help  us  solve  a  problem  which  scien- 
tists have  generally  disregarded  or  considered  as 
solved,  the  tremendous  problem  of  sleep. 

Algebra  and  Latin,  which  are  of  no  earthly  use 
to  999/1000  of  those  studying  them,  are  a  part,  of 
the  curriculum  of  almost  every  high  school. 
Sleep,  in  which  we  spend  one-third  of  our  life,  is 
not  considered  as  of  any  importance. 

[xi] 


Preface 

How  could  we  understand  sleep  unless  we  under- 
stood the  phenomena  which  take  place  in  sleep: 
dreams? 

Even  Freud,  whose  research  work  lifted  dream 
study  from  the  level  of  witchcraft  to  that  of  an 
accurate  science,  seems  to  have  been  little  con- 
cerned with  the  enigma  of  sleep  and  sleeplessness. 

This  book  is  an  attempt  at  correlating  sleep  and 
dreams  and  at  explaining  sleep  through  dreams. 

Briefly  stated,  my  thesis  is  that  we  sleep  in  order 
to  dream  and  to  be  for  a  number  of  hours  our 
simpler  and  unrepressed  selves.  Sleeplessness  is 
due  to  the  fact  that,  in  our  fear  of  incompletely  re- 
pressed cravings,  we  do  not  dare  to  become, 
through  the  unconsciousness  of  sleep,  our  primitive 
selves.  In  nightmares,  repressed  cravings  which 
seek  gratification  under  a  symbolic  cloak,  and  are 
therefore  unrecognizable,  cause  us  to  be  tortured  by 
fear. 

The  cure  for  sleeplessness  and  nightmares  is,  ac- 
cordingly, the  acceptance  of  biological  facts  ob- 
servable in  our  unconscious  and  our  willingness  to 
grant,  through  the  unconsciousness  of  sleep, 
dream  gratification  to  conscious  and  unconscious 
cravings  of  a  socially  objectionable  kind  which  we 
must,  however,  accept  as  a  part  of  our  personality. 
121  Madison  Avenue  February,  1921. 

New  York  City 
[xii] 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

I.  Sleep  Defined,  1 

II.  Fatigue  and  Rest,  11 

III.  The  Flight  from  Reality,  20 

IV.  Hypnogogic  and  Hypnopompic  Visions,  32 
V.  Where  Dreams  Come  From,  36 

VI.  Convenience  Dreams,  ,44 

VII.  Dream  Life,  48 

VIII.  Wish  Fulfilment,  58 

IX.  Nightmares,  67 

X.  Typical  Dreams  and  Sleep  Walking,  75 

XI.  Prophetic  Dreams,  85 

XII.  Attitudes  Reflected  in  Dreams,  92 

XIII.  Recurrent  Dreams,  102 

XIV.  Day  Dreams,  113 

XV.  Neurosis  and  Dreams,  118 

XVI.  Sleeplessness,  127 

XVII.  Dream  Interpretation,  144 
Bibliography,  158 

Index,  163 


CHAPTER  I:  SLEEP  DEFINED 

Literary  quotations  and  time-worn  stereotypes 
exert  a  deplorable  influence  on  our  thinking.  They 
lead  us  to  consider  certain  open  questions  as  settled, 
certain  puzzling  problems  as  solved. 

From  time  immemorial,  the  unthinking  and  think- 
ing alike,  have  accepted  the  idea  of  a  kinship  be- 
tween sleep  and  death.  Expressions  like  "eternal 
sleep"  show  by  the  frequency  with  which  they 
recur,  how  constantly  associated  the  two  ideas  are 
in  the  average  mind. 

Not  only  is  that  association  absurd  but  its  conse- 
quences are  regrettable,  at  least  from  one  point  of 
view:  if  sleep  is  a  form  of  death,  the  psychic  phe- 
nomena connected  with  it  are  bound  to  be  misinter- 
preted and  either  granted  a  dignity  they  do  not 
deserve  or  scornfully  ignored. 

The  superstitious  may  loose  all  critical  sense  and 
see  in  sleep  and  sleep  thinking  something  mysteri- 
ous and  mystical.  The  scientist,  on  the  other  hand, 
may  consider  such  phenomena  as  beneath  his  notice. 

No  sober  appreciation  of  sleep  and  dreams  can 
be  expected  from  any  one  who  associates  in  any 
way  the  idea  of  sleep  and  the  idea  of  death. 

[1] 


Psychoanalysis^  Sleep  and  Dreams 

Respiration  seems  to  be  the  essential  feature  of 
life,  and  its  lack,  the  essential  feature  of  death.  As 
long  as  respiration  takes  place,  the  two  ferments  of 
the  body,  pepsin  and  trypsin,  break  up  insoluble 
food  molecules  into  soluble  acid  molecules  which 
are  then  absorbed  by  the  blood  and  carried  to  the 
cells  of  the  body  where  they  are  utilized  to  build  up 
new  solid  cell  matter. 

When  respiration  ceases,  a  degree  of  acidity  is 
reached  which  enables  the  two  ferments  to  digest 
the  body  of  disintegrating  each  cell.  This  is  ac- 
cording to  Jacques  Loeb  the  meaning  of  death. 

No  such  chemical  action  is  observable  in  any 
form  of  sleep. 

From  that  point  of  view,  sleep  is  a  form  of  life. 

Sleep  is  even  a  more  normal  form  of  life  than 
the  average  waking  states. 

In  the  normal  waking  states,  the  vagotonic  nerves 
of  the  autonomic  system  which  upbuild  the  body 
and  insure  the  continuance  of  the  race  should  dom- 
inate the  organism,  being  checked  in  emergencies 
only  by  the  sympathetic  nerves  which  constitute 
the  human  safety  system. 

The  vagotonic  nerves  contract  the  pupil,  make 
saliva  and  gastric  juice  flow,  slow  down  the  heart 
beats,  decrease  the  blood  pressure,  promote  sexual 
activities,  etc. 
[2] 


Sleep  Defined 


The  sympathetic  nerves  on  the  contrary,  dilate 
the  pupil,  dry  the  mouth,  stop  the  gastric  activities, 
increase  the  heart  beats,  raise  the  blood  pressure, 
decrease  or  arrest  the  sexual  activities,  etc. 

In  peaceful  sleep,  we  observe  that  the  vagotonic 
functions  hold  full  sway.  In  sleep,  our  pupils  are 
contracted.  Even  when  they  have  been  dilated  by 
atropine,  they  become  contracted  again  in  sleep. 

In  sleep,  the  digestive  organs  continue  to  perform 
their  specific  work,  all  the  popular  beliefs  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.  Infants  and  animals 
generally  go  to  sleep  as  soon  as  they  finish  feed- 
ing. Animals  digest  infinitely  better  if  allowed 
to  sleep  after  being  fed,  than  if  compelled  to  stay 
awake,  walk  or  run. 

The  activity  of  the  sexual  organs  is  as  great  in 
sleep  as  in  waking  life;  in  certain  cases,  it  is  even 
greater. 

At  certain  times,  during  sleep,  the  pressure  of  the 
blood  in  the  brain  is  greatly  reduced,  and  certain 
authors  have  concluded  that  sleep  was  characterized 
by  brain  anaemia,  which  some  of  them  consider  as 
the  cause  of  sleep. 

Indeed,  unconsciousness  can  be  induced  by  pro- 
ducing a  temporary  brain  anaemia,  for  instance  by 
compressing  the  carotid  arteries  of  the  neck  for  a 
minute  or  so.     Sleepiness  almost  always  appears 

[3] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

then  and  lasts  as  long  as  the  pressure  is  exerted. 

Special  manometers  show  that  the  fall  in  the 
blood  pressure  invariably  precedes  the  appearance 
of  sleep.  In  dogs  whose  skulls  have  been  trephined 
for  purposes  of  observation,  the  brain  can  be  seen 
to  turn  pale  as  soon  as  the?  animals  fall  asleep. 

But  we  have  here  simply  one  of  the  vagotonic 
activities  mentioned  previously.  In  the  normal 
organism,  the  blood  pressure  should  be  low,  rising 
only  in  emergencies,  when  the  organism  is  facing 
some  danger  and  must  be  prepared  for  fight  or 
flight. 

And  in  fact,  the  slightest  light,  noise,  pain  or 
smell  stimulus,  is  sufficient  to  bring  the  blood  back 
to  the  brain  during  sleep.  Our  sympathetic  nerves 
are  on  the  watch  and  even  if  the  subject  does  not 
wake  up,  they  rush  the  blood  whenever  it  is  needed 
for  emergency  action,  in  this  case,  to  the  general 
switchboard  of  the  organism,  the  brain. 

But  this  so-called  brain  anaemia  is  not  constant 
during  the  entire  period  of  sleep.  The  pressure 
falls  gradually  before  sleep  sets  in  and  only  reaches 
its  minimum  an  hour  after  sleep  has  begun.  Then 
it  increases  gradually  and  becomes  normal  again 
about  the  usual  waking  time.  We  shall  see  later 
that  attention  follows  an  identical  curve. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  in  sleep  the  respira- 
[4] 


Sleep  Defined 


tion  becomes  slower  and  that  the  amount  of  air 
inspired  and  consequently  of  oxygen  assimilated  is 
lowered.  But  inaction  in  the  waking  states  will 
show  exactly  the  same  results. 

A  smaller  quantity  of  carbonic  acid  is  eliminated 
in  sleep,  the  decrease  being  about  sixteen  per  cent. 
But  that  condition  is  not  due  to  sleep.  It  is  due 
to  many  other  factors  such  as  the  absence  of  light, 
etc. 

The  nature  of  the  food  taken  before  retiring  has 
also  a  notable  influence  on  the  quantity  of  carbonic 
acid  eliminated  by  the  sleeper;  the  quantity  varies 
from  seventy  five  per  cent  after  a  meat  supper  to 
ninety  per  cent  after  a  diet  of  starches. 

The  sweat  glands  of  the  skin  secrete  more  actively 
in  sleep  than  in  waking  life,  which  is  also  a  vago- 
tonic symptom  and  is  also  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
sweat  centre  is  easily  affected  by  carbonic  acid. 

This  increase  in  the  activity  of  the  skin  accounts 
for  the  decrease  we  notice  in  the  activity  of  the 
kidneys.  (More  urine  is  produced  on  cold  days 
when  the  perspiration  is  scanty  than  on  hot  summer 
days.) 

The  lowering  of  the  temperature  in  sleep  is 
simply  a  result  of  inactivity,  not  of  sleep. 

We  know  that  many  pains,  especially  neuralgias, 
disappear  in  sleep.     Many  of  those  ailments,  how- 

[5] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

ever,  are  of  a  neurotic  origin  and  constitute  a  form 
of  escape  from  reality.  When  reality  has  been 
practically  abolished  by  unconsciousness,  they  are 
no  longer  "needed." 

Experiments  made  on  instructors  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Iowa  who  were  kept  awake  for  ninety  hours 
showed  that  the  weight  of  the  subjects  increased 
during  the  experiments,  decreasing  later  when  the 
subjects  were  allowed  to  resume  their  natural  life 
and  to  sleep.  The  increase  was  solely  due  to  the 
fact  that  during  the  experiments,  the  subjects  were 
relieved  of  their  duties,  remained  idle  in  the  psycho- 
logical laboratory  and  hence  consumed  less  organic 
matter  than  if  they  had  led  an  active  life,  preparing 
their  courses  and  teaching  several  hours  a  day. 

It  has  been  stated  many  times  that  a  form  of 
motor  paralysis  sets  in  during  sleep.  Yet  we  all 
know  of  the  many  motions  performed  by  every 
sleeper,  turning  from  side  to  side,  drawing  or  push- 
ing away  the  bed  clothes,  removing  stimuli  applied 
to  the  face,  talking,  not  to  mention,  of  course,  sleep 
walking. 

Sleep  does  not  even  mean  complete  muscular  re- 
laxation, for  sentinels  have  been  observed  who 
could  sleep  standing;  some  people  sleep  sitting  up 
in  their  chairs.  Many  animals,  birds,  bats,  horses, 
sleep  in  positions  which  make  muscular  relaxation 
[6] 


Sleep  Defined 


impossible;  when  their  balance  is  disturbed  by  an 
observer,  they  re-establish  it  without  awaking. 
Sleeping  ducks  keep  on  paddling  in  circles  to  avoid 
drifting  against  dangerous  shores,  etc. 

In  other  words,  there  is  not  a  part  of  our  body 
which  ceases  in  sleep  to  perform  its  specific  work. 
Our  lungs  continue  to  breathe,  our  heart  to  send 
blood  to  all  parts  of  the  body,  our  glands  secrete 
various  chemicals;  we  hear,  smell  and  to  a  certain 
extent,  see.  The  lowering  of  our  eyelids  is  simply 
a  half-conscious  effort  to  remove  sight  stimuli. 
Our  nails  and  hair  continue  to  grow,  although,  for 
that  matter,  they  do  so  for  some  time  even  after 
death. 

Finally  our  mental  activity  does  not  cease  dur- 
ing sleep.  Wake  up  a  sleeper  at  any  time  and  he 
will  awaken  from  a  dream.  He  may  not  be  able 
to  tell  that  dream  but  he  will  know  for  sure  that, 
not  only  was  he  dreaming,  but  had  been  dreaming 
for  a  long  while  before  awaking. 

Wherein,  then,  does  sleep  differ  from  waking 
life? 

Solely  in  the  form  of  our  mental  activities. 

Sleep  is  not  as  Manaceine,  the  author  of  the  most 
complete  book  on  sleep,  stated :  the  resting  time  of 
consciousness.  We  do  not  withdraw  our  attention 
completely  from  the  environment  in  sleep. 

[7] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

Wlien  we  make  up  our  minds,  for  instance,  to 
wake  up  at  a  certain  time,  we  seldom  fail  to  carry 
out  our  purpose.  Which  does  not  mean  that  we 
are  suddenly  aroused  out  of  our  unconsciousness  by 
something  within  ourselves,  but  more  probably  that 
our  attention  has  been  concentrated  all  night  on 
certain  stimuli  indicating  time,  distant  chimes,  ac- 
tivities taking  place  at  a  definite  hour,  and  which 
we  had  noticed  unconsciously,  although  they  may 
have  escaped  our  conscious  attention.  It  has  even 
been  suggested  that  as  respiration  and  pulse  are 
more  or  less  constant  in  rest,  they  are  used  by  the 
organism  as  unconscious  time-registers.  This  is 
possibly  one  of  the  phenomena  due  to  the  activity 
of  the  pituitary  body  in  which  may  reside  the 
"sense  of  time"  and  which  controls  all  the  rhythms 
of  the  body. 

Jouffroy,  Manaceine  and  Kempf  have  remarked 
that  nursing  mothers  may  sleep  soundly  in  spite  of 
the  disturbances  which  take  place  about  them,  but 
that  the  slightest  motion  of  their  infant  will  awaken 
them.  Many  nurses  not  only  can  wake  up  at  regu- 
lar intervals  to  administer  a  drug  to  their  patients, 
but,  besides,  can  be  aroused  out  of  a  sound  sleep 
by  a  change  in  the  patient's  breathing  foreboding 
some  danger. 

Our  withdrawal  of  attention  from  reality  follows 
[8] 


Sleep  Defined 


the  same  curve  as  that  followed  by  the  withdrawal 
of  blood  from  the  brain. 

Many  experiments  have  been  made  to  determine 
that  curve  and  to  sound  the  depth  of  sleep.  In  one 
case  a  metallic  ball  was  allowed  to  fall  from  vary- 
ing heights  until  the  noise  awakened  the  sleeper;  in 
another  case  electric  currents  of  varying  voltage 
were  used  to  stimulate  the  subject,  etc.  All  experi- 
ments have  yielded  the  same  results:  Sleep 
reaches  its  lowest  depth  during  the  first  two  or  three 
hours,  the  average  time  being  shorter  during  the  day 
than  at  night.  In  the  majority  of  subjects,  the 
greatest  depth  is  reached  about  the  end  of  the  first 
hour.  After  the  third  hour,  sleep  is  easily  dis- 
turbed, the  more  so  as  the  usual  awakening  time 
approaches. 

To  conclude,  we  will  say  that  sleep  partakes  of 
all  the  characteristics  of  normal  life,  the  only  essen- 
tial difference  we  can  establish  scientifically  being  a 
greater  withdrawal  of  attention  from  reality  in 
normal  sleep  than  in  normal  waking  life. 

We  insist  on  using  the  terms  normal  waking  life, 
for  there  are  forms  of  abnormal  waking  life  in 
which  attention  is  withdrawn  as  completely  from 
reality  as  it  is  in  normal  sleep. 

In  the  disease  designated  by  psychiatrists  as 
dementia  praecox,  the  patient  may  become  entirely 

[9] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

negative,  some  time  regressing  to  the  level  of 
the  unborn  child,  and  withdraw  even  more  entirely 
from  reality  than  the  sleeper  who,  without  awaking, 
is  conscious  of  certain  stimuli  and  performs  certain 
actions  showing  a  comprehension  of  their  nature. 


[10] 


CHAPTER  II:  FATIGUE  AND  REST 

What  causes  sleep?  What  causes  us  to  withdraw 
partly  our  attention  from  our  environment?  The 
answer:  brain  anaemia,  is  unsatisfactory  for  we 
may  ask  in  turn:  what  causes  brain  anaemia? 

A  study  of  brain  anaemia  leads  one  to  conclude 
that  it  coincides  with  the  usual  sleeping  period  and 
that  it  is  produced  by  sleep  instead  of  producing 
sleep. 

The  large  majority  of  laymen  and  scientists, 
however,  give  a  much  simpler  answer:  we  go  to 
sleep  because  we  are  tired  and  need  rest. 

Even  as  sleep  and  death  have  been  coupled  in 
the  literature  of  all  nations,  fatigue  and  sleepiness, 
rest  and  sleep  have  come  to  be  generally  considered 
as  synonymous. 

Fatigue,  however,  is  as  difficult  to  define  scien- 
tifically as  sleep.  Drawing  a  line  between  physical 
fatigue  and  mental  fatigue  does  not  simplify  the 
problem;  on  the  contrary,  it  complicates  it  by  posit- 
ing it  wrongly. 

We  know  that  there  is  no  purely  physical  fatigue. 
Fatigue  is  only  caused  in  a  very  restricted  measure 

[11] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

by  the  accumulation  of  "fatigue"  products  or  the 
depletion  of  repair  stocks. 

Under  certain  "mental"  influences,  our  muscles 
can  perform  much  more  than  their  usual  "stint" 
without  showing  fatigue.  Hypnotize  a  man  and  he 
will  do  things  he  could  not  attempt  in  the  waking 
state.  He  can  lie  rigid,  reposing  on  nothing  but  his 
neck  and  heels ;  he  can  even  support  in  that  position 
the  weight  of  a  full-sized  man.  Men  on  the  march 
can  show  wonderful  endurance  provided  their 
"spirits"  are  kept  up  by  some  form  of  cheer,  band 
music,  etc.  Ergograph  observations  show  that 
signs  of  muscular  fatigue  appear  and  disappear 
without  any  obvious  "physical"  reason.  Standard- 
ized motions  which  have  been  made  almost  auto- 
matic, tire  us  less  than  conscious  activity. 

We  shall  not  deny  that  in  certain  cases  fatigue 
may  appear  purely  "physical."  When  a  continued 
expenditure  of  energy,  walking,  carrying  heavy 
burdens,  has  induced  muscular  soreness,  the  organ- 
ism must  cease  exerting  itself  for  a  while  and  re- 
cuperate. 

But  relatively  few  people  perform  physical  ac- 
tivities which  actually  wear  out  the  organism. 

Even  then,  if  that  form  of  exhaustion  was  condu- 
cive to  sleep,  the  more  complete  the  exhaustion  was, 
the  deeper  the  sleep  should  be. 
[121 


Fatigue  and  Rest 


Yet  we  know  that  people  can  be  "too  tired  to 
sleep." 

This  is  easily  explained  through  a  consideration 
of  a  phenomenon  known  as  the  "second  wind"  and 
which,  before  Cannon's  observations  on  the  chem- 
istry of  the  emotions,  was  rather  mysterious. 

Athletes  competing  on  the  running  track  are 
often  seen  to  falter  and  fall  back,  apparently  ex- 
hausted ;  after  which,  they  suddenly  seem  to  breathe 
more  freely,  they  overcome  their  limpness  and  start 
out  on  a  fresh  spurt  which  may  cause  them  to  head 
off  steadier  runners. 

What  happens  in  such  a  case  is  this :  great  physi- 
cal exertion  causes  a  form  of  asphyxiation.  As- 
phyxiation and  the  concomitant  fear,  liberate 
adrenin  which  restores  the  tone  of  tired  muscles  and 
also  glycogen  (sugar)  which  supplies  the  body  with 
new  fuel. 

If  the  exertion  continues  long  enough  to  use  up 
all  these  emergency  chemicals,  the  muscular  relaxa- 
tion necessary  for  sleep  may  be  obtained.  Other- 
wise, the  organism  prepared  for  a  struggle  with 
reality,  will  not  lend  itself  to  a  flight  from  it.  Al- 
though we  are  "worn  out"  we  toss  about  in  our  bed, 
try  all  possible  sleeping  positions  and  only  sleep 
when  the  energy  which  was  supplied  for  a  long 
struggle  has  been  entirely  burnt  up. 

[13] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

The  majority  of  people,  aftei^  all,  busy  them- 
selves with  tasks  which  do  not  really  deplete  their 
stores  of  energy,  but  which  prove  monotonous. 
That  monotony  is  then  interpreted  as  fatigue. 

In  such  cases,  rest  seems  to  be  more  easily  at- 
tained through  a  change  of  activity  than  through 
mere  cessation  of  activity. 

A  business  man  has  been  closeted  in  his  office 
attending  to  many  tedious  details,  reading  letters 
and  answering  them,  etc.,  and  by  five  o'clock  he 
feels  "tired."  He  will  then  go  home,  change  his 
day  suit  for  evening  wear,  attend  a  dinner  at  which 
he  will  do  perhaps  much  talking,  then  watch  actors 
for  three  hours  and  feel  "rested." 

Or  at  the  end  of  a  "heavy"  week,  he  will  gather 
up  his  golf  outfit  and  walk  miles  in  the  wake  of  a 
rubber  ball.  He  returns  to  his  work  "rested,"  al- 
though he  has  only  exchanged  one  form  of  activity 
for  other  forms  of  activity.  Of  actual  "rest"  he 
has  had  none. 

Children  "tired"  of  sitting  in  a  class  room  will 
romp  wildly,  shout  at  the  tops  of  their  lungs,  jostle 
and  fight  one  another  and  return  to  meet  their 
teacher  "rested." 

Undirected  activity  in  the  young,  pleasurable  ac- 
tivity in  the  adult  do  not  seem  to  make  rest  neces- 
sary, and  in  fact  are  a  form  of  "rest." 
[14] 


Fatigue  and  Rest 


Egotistical  gratification  easily  takes  the  place  of 
rest.  Heads  of  large  businesses  have  sometimes 
mentioned  to  me  that  they  worked  much  harder 
than  some  of  their  employes.  Some  of  them  kept 
on  revolving  commercial  schemes  in  their  heads  or 
attending  business  meetings  long  after  their  office 
workers  had  left.  "And  yet,"  they  added,  "we  are 
not  complaining  about  being  tired."  Nor  were 
they  as  tired,  after  fifteen  hours  of  "free  labor"  as 
their  employes  were  after  six  or  eight  hours  of 
routine  work  allowing  them  very  little  initiative  and 
independence  of  action. 

Edison  works  eighteen  hours  a  day  and  only 
"rests"  through  sleep  some  four  hours  out  of  the 
twenty  four.  I  wager  that  if  he  were  put  at  work 
in  his  own  plant,  under  the  direction  of  a  foreman, 
performing  regular,  monotonous  tasks,  he  would 
break  down  under  the  strain  of  such  long  hours  and 
would  have  to  "rest"  twice  as  much  as  he  does  now. 
His  work  satisfies  him,  and  every  new  detail  he  per- 
fects, every  novelty  he  initiates,  vouchsafes  him  a 
powerful  ego  gratification. 

Napoleon,  too,  could  perform  incredible  feats  of 
muscular  activity  and  endurance  after  which  four 
hours'  sleep  were  sufficient  to  rest  him.  His  life 
was  for  many  years  a  continuous  round  of  ego 
gratifications,  won  at  the  cost  of  great  exertions,  it 

[15] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

is  true,  but  proclaiming  to  him  and  the  world  his 
almost  unrestricted  power  and  luck. 

One  is  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  a  desire  for 
rest  is  a  desire,  not  for  decreased  activity  but  for 
increased  activity. 

I  shall  make  this  point  clear  through  a  simile. 
The  manufacturer  who  "attends  to  business"  must, 
in  order  to  succeed,  "concentrate"  on  a  few  sub- 
jects and  exclude  all  others  from  his  mind.  He 
may  for  a  few  hours  think  of  nothing  but,  let  us  say, 
a  certain  grade  of  woollens,  certain  machinery,  a 
certain  customer  and  perhaps  a  certain  engineer 
and  some  financial  problem  connected  with  those 
four  thoughts.  He  must  therefore  exclude  from 
his  mind  at  the  time,  thoughts  of  playing  golf,  buy- 
ing new  clothes,  going  to  the  theatre,  renting  an 
apartment,  repairing  his  motor  car,  thoughts  of 
meals,  women,  card  playing,  and  many  other 
thoughts  which  are  clamouring  for  admission  to 
consciousness  because  they  all  represent  human 
cravings. 

In  his  relaxed  moments  he  will  let  all  those 
other  thoughts  come  to  the  surface.  Which  means 
that,  what  tired  him,  was  the  fact  that  he  had  to 
keep  all  those  subjects  down  and  allow  only  the 
other  four  to  rise  to  consciousness. 

Mental  rest  consists  in  admitting  ideas  pell  mell 
[16] 


Fatigue  and  Rest 


into  consciousness  without  exercising  any  censor- 
ship on  them.  It  consists  in  passing  from  a  re- 
duced but  directed  mental  activity  to  an  increased 
but  undirected  mental  activity. 

In  other  words,  rest  is  the  free,  normal,  unim- 
peded functioning  of  the  vagotonic  nerves  which 
upbuild  the  body  and  assure  the  continuance  of  the 
race.  Ego  and  sex  activities,  mental  and  physical, 
are  constantly  struggling  for  admission  to  con- 
sciousness and  for  their  gratification.  They  are 
held  down,  however,  by  the  sympathetic  nerves 
which  play  the  part  of  a  safety  device,  moderating 
or  inhibiting  the  vagotonic  activities  whenever  the 
latter  might  endanger  the  personality. 

Physical  and  mental  rest,  however,  being  easily' 
attained  through  a  change  of  activities,  cannot  be  j 
entirely  synonymous  with  sleep.  Sleep  takes  place 
mainly  while  we  are  resting,  although  we  know 
of  cases  when  sleep  sets  in  regardless  of  con- 
tinued muscular  activity,  but  sleep  is  not  exactly 
"rest."  We  do  not  sleep  because  we  need  rest. 
In  many  cases  we  can  or  could  rest  very  well,  al- 
though in  such  cases  sleep  is  an  impossibility. 

What  then  induces  sleep?  The  certainty  that 
we  can  for  a  time  relax  our  watch  on  our  environ- 
ment; a  feeling  of  perfect  safety;  the  conscious 


[17] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

or  unconscious  knowledge  that  no  danger  threatens 
us. 

Our  receptive  contact  with  reality  is  attained 
through  the  action  of  our  vagotonic  nerves  which, 
as  stated  before,  upbuild  the  body  and  assure  the 
continuance  of  the  race.  Our  defensive  contact, 
on  the  other  hand  is  attained  through  our  sympa- 
thetic nerves  which  interrupt  all  the  activities  which 
are  not  necessary  for  fight  or  flight.  As  long  as 
some  stimulus  is  interpreted  by  those  nerves  as 
indicating  a  possible  danger,  we  cannot  sleep,  al- 
though we  may,  imder  the  influence  of  terrifying 
fear,  fall  into  unconsciousness. 

A  light  flashed  on  our  closed  lids  at  night  causes 
us  to  wake  up  because  sympathetic  activities  bid  us 
to  prepare  for  an  emergency.  A  light  burning 
evenly  in  our  bedroom  and  not  too  bright  to  cause 
physical  pain,  will,  on  the  other  hand,  allow  us 
to  sleep  soundly  because  the  constant  character 
of  the  stimulus  does  not  cause  us  to  expect  any 
danger  therefrom. 

A  mouse  rustling  a  bit  of  paper  will  wake  us  up, 
but  trains  passing  in  front  of  our  window  at  regu- 
lar intervals,  or  the  constant  rumble  of  a  neigh- 
bouring power  house  will  not  prove  a  disturbance 
as  soon  as  our  nerves  have  learnt  to  interpret  those 
stimuli  as  harmless. 
[18] 


Fatigue  and  Rest 


Conversation  with  a  dull,  witless  person,  un- 
likely to  best  us  in  debate,  puts  us  to  sleep.  Ar- 
gument with  keen,  sharp-minded  people,  who  keep 
us  on  the  defensive,  may  lead  to  sleeplessness  for 
the  rest  of  the  night.  A  dull  book  in  which  nothing 
happens  or  is  expected  to  happen,  acts  as  a  so- 
porific; we  cannot  close  our  eyes  before  we  know 
the  denouement  of  a  thrilling  piece  of  fiction. 

In  other  words,  monotony  transforms  itself  into  a 
symbol  of  safety.  Safety  does  not  require  the  mus- 
cular tension,  the  blood  stream  speed  which  the 
organism  needs  in  order  to  cope  with  possible  emer- 
gencies. We  "let  go"  and  no  longer  pay  any  close 
attention  to  our  environment.     We  sleep. 


[19] 


CHAPTER  III:  THE  FLIGHT  FROM 
REALITY 

Monotony  symbolizing  safety  enables  us  to 
withdraw  our  attention  from  our  environment, 
from  a  reality  which  we  no  longer  fear,  but  it  does 
not  compel  us  to  do  so.  There  is  in  sleep  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  compulsion  which  is  not  accounted 
for  by  the  mere  monotony  of  environmental  stimuli. 
We  go  to  sleep  willingly  but  not  entirely  of  our  own 
free  will.     We  yield  to  sleep. 

A  consideration  of  abnormal  sleep  states  will 
help  us  considerably  in  determining  the  actual 
cause  of  sleep. 

Abnormal  states  always  throw  a  flood  of  light  on 
normal  states  of  which  they  are  only  an  exagger- 
ated variety.  The  neurosis  is  the  best  magnifying 
glass  through  which  to  watch  normal  life,  provided 
of  course  that  we  afterward  reduce  our  observa- 
tions to  the  proper  scale. 

The  average  person  sleeps  from  six  to  ten  hours 
out  of  the  twenty  four,  some  time  between  eight 
at  night  and  ten  in  the  morning.  In  abnormal 
cases,  on  the  other  hand,  we  see  the  duration  of 
[20] 


The  Flight  from  Reality 


sleep  considerably  prolonged  and  the  onset  of 
sleepiness  appearing  at  times  when  complete  wake- 
fulness is  usually  the  rule. 

The  circumstances  surrounding  those  abnormal 
cases  are  never  pleasant.  We  never  hear  of  any 
one  falling  asleep  while  witnessing  a  very  amus- 
ing play,  while  in  the  company  of  a  very  interesting 
person  or  while  busy  with  some  extremely  attractive 
occupation. 

One  incident  from  Napoleon's  biography  will 
make  my  meaning  clear.  During  his  days  of 
glory  Napoleon  never  slept  more  than  four  or  five 
hours  out  of  the  twenty  four.  His  physical  and 
intellectual  activities  were  prodigious.  He  would, 
at  times,  ride  on  horseback  for  ten  hours  at  a 
stretch,  then  hold  conferences  with  his  staff  until 
late  into  the  night,  then  dictate  innumerable  letters. 
Yet  he  did  not  feel  tired  or  sleepy  and  a  few  hours 
of  sleep  were  sufficient  to  "relieve  his  fatigue." 

On  the  other  hand,  let  us  remember  what  hap- 
pened after  the  battle  of  Aspem,  the  first  he  lost 
after  a  series  of  seventeen  victories:  He  fell 
asleep  after  a  long,  unsuccessful  struggle  with 
drowsiness  and  for  thirty-six  hours  could  not  be 
aroused. 

His  biographers  also  mention  that  when  his  life 
dream  was  shattered  at  Waterloo  and  he  was  sent 

[211 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

into  exile  on  a  remote  island,  he  began  to  sleep 
as  many  hours  as  the  average,  normal  man. 

After  Aspem  and  after  Waterloo,  reality  had 
become  such,;  that  an  escape  from  it,  via  the  un- 
consciousness of  sleep,  must  have  been  welcome. 
That  the  reaction  of  defeat  must  have  been  more 
keenly  felt  by  the  young  man  who  lost  Aspem  and 
who  presented  strong  neurotic  traits,  than  by  the 
more  settled  man  who  lost  Waterloo,  can  be  easily 
understood. 

Nansen  in  his  Polar  exile  slept  twenty  hours  a 
day.  He  certainly  was  not  in  need  of  rest  or  re- 
cuperation, for  his  idleness  was  complete,  but  the 
reality  of  ice  and  snow  which  kept  him  a  prisoner, 
was  one  from  which  he  was  glad  to  withdraw  his 
attention. 

I  personally  observed  two  cases  in  which  sudden 
fits  of  sleepiness  could  be  interpreted  as  an  escape 
from  reality. 

A  gambler  could  go  for  several  days  and  nights 
without  sleep,  provided  he  was  winning.  After  a 
heavy  loss  or  a  period  during  which  his  earnings 
were  offset  by  his  losses,  he  would  go  to  bed  and 
sleep  as  much  as  four  days  and  four  nights  at  a 
time,  arising  once  or  twice  a  day  to  partake  of 
some  food  and  returning  at  once  to  his  slumbers. 

A  neurotic  with  a  strong  inferiority  complex 
[22] 


The  Flight  from  Reality 


was  overwhelmed  by  sleepiness  every  time  he  en- 
countered a  defeat  of  a  sexual  or  egotistic  nature. 
After  a  quarrel,  or  whenever  a  discussion  in  which 
he  took  part  turned  to  his  disadvantage,  he  had 
to  lie  down  and  "sleep  it  off." 

This  is  probably  the  key  to  the  enigma  of  Cas- 
per Hauser's  case.  He  was  born  in  Germany  at 
the  beginning  of  the  last  century  and  brought  up 
in  complete  solitude,  in  a  small  dark  room.  At 
the  age  of  seventeen,  he  had  never  seen  men,  ani- 
mals or  plants,  the  sun,  moon  or  stars.  He  then 
was  taken  out  of  his  cell,  and  abandoned  on  the 
streets  of  Nuremberg,  dazed  and  helpless. 

All  the  efforts  made  by  kind  Samaritans  to  de- 
velop his  mentality  proved  futile.  They  had  only 
one  result:  to  make  him  fall  asleep.  Accustomed 
for  years  to  the  peace,  quiet  and  safety  of  his 
cell,  he  reacted  to  a  new,  troublesome  and  com- 
plicated environment  as  newly  bom  infants  do, 
who  in  incredibly  long  periods  of  sleep,  in  no  wise 
explainable  through  fatigue,  escape  reality  and 
return  to  the  perfect  happiness  of  the  fetal 
state. 

In  certain  forms  of  the  disturbance  known  as 
sleeping  sickness,  people  merge  into  a  sleep  which 
continues  for  weeks,  months  or  even  years,  and 
which  sometimes  culminates  in  death.     (In  many 

[23] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

cases,  however,  the  sleepiness  may  be  totally  lack- 
ing.) 

The  sleeping  sickness  was  first  observed  some 
hundred  years  ago  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa 
and,  since  then,  in  an  area  of  the  African  continent 
extending  from  Senegal  to  the  Congo.  Negroes 
are  almost  the  only  sufferers,  although  a  few  whites 
have  been  affected  by  this  disease  which,  at  times, 
extends  to  large  numbers  of  the  population. 

According  to  various  medical  observers,  the 
sleeping  sickness  usually  appears  among  slaves 
doing  arduous,  exhausting  work. 

It  is  the  individuals  who  stand  lowest  in  intelli- 
gence who  are  most  severely  affected.  In  com- 
munities where  the  mental  development  has  been 
retarded,  imitation  easily  spreads  the  contagion  and 
this  is  probably  the  reason  why  entire  villages 
are  decimated  by  that  curious  malady. 

Whether  the  sleeping  sickness  is  in  certain  cases 
induced  by  the  bite  of  a  fly  or  appears  without  ob- 
vious   physical    cause    is    immaterial.^     Paranoia 

1  Readers  unfamiliar  with  my  previous  works  might  accuse  me 
of  placing  undue  emphasis  upon  "mental"  causes  and  ignoring 
the  influence  of  bacilli,  toxins,  etc.,  in  disease.  I  refer  them  to  the 
chapter:  Mind  and  Body,  an  indivisible  unit,  in  my  book,  "Psycho- 
analysis and  Behaviour."  It  is  a  truism  that  in  tuberculosis  for 
instance  the  prognosis  depends  greatly  from  the  "mental"  condition 
of  the  patient  and  on  his  will  to  live.  We  are  protected  against 
disease  germs  by  the  various  secretions  of  the  mouth,  stomach, 

[24] 


The  Flight  from  Reality 


induced  by  syphilis  is  in  no  way  different  from 
ordinary  paranoia. 

Hence  we  are  justified  in  linking  together  cer- 
tain aspects  of  the  African  sleeping  sickness  and 
the  lethargic  ailment  which  affects  the  white  races 
in  Europe  and  America. 

Both  have  the  appearance  of  normal  sleep,  the 
only  striking  difference,  barring  certain  physical 
syndromes,  being  the  unusual  length  of  the  sleep- 
ing period  or  its  onset  at  unusual  and  unexpected 
times. 

In  white  subjects,  narcolepsy  is  seldom  fatal  but 
has  been  known  to  last  for  years. 

The  most  famous  case  on  record  is  probably  that 
of  Karoline  OUson  reported  in  a  Salpetriere  pub- 
lication for  1912. 

Karoline  Ollson  was  born  in  1861  in  a  small 
town  of  Sweden.  At  the  age  of  14,  at  the  onset  of 
her  menstruation,  she  once  came  home  complaining 
of  toothache,  went  to  bed  and  remained  bedridden 

intestine,  etc.  Whenever  a  "mental"  cause,  such  as  fear,  intense 
sorrow,  etc.,  translates  itself  into  an  action  of  the  sympathetic 
system  which  stops  the  flow  of  saliva  and  gastric  juice  and  the 
intestinal  peristalsis,  we  can  see  how  the  organism  is  then  pre- 
disposed to  an  invasion  of  pathogenic  bacteria.  The  depressed, 
the  stupid  and  the  ignorant  are  the  first  victims  in  any  epidemic, 
the  depressed  because  their  protective  vagotonism  is  too  low,  the 
stupid  and  the  ignorant  because  they  are  more  frequently  than 
the  intelligent  and  well  informed  a  prey  to  fear. 

[25] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

till  1908.  For  thirty-two  years  she  slept  all  day 
and  all  night,  waking  up  now  and  then  for  a  few 
minutes,  taking  dim  notice  of  happenings  in  her 
environment  and  speaking  a  few  words.  Two 
glasses  of  milk  a  day  seemed  to  be  sufficient  to 
sustain  her.  She  was  kept  for  a  fortnight  in  a  hos- 
pital from  which  she  was  discharged  when  her 
ailment  was  diagnosed  as  "hysteria." 

When  her  mother  died  in  1905  she  woke  up  and 
wept  as  long  as  the  corpse  remained  in  the  house. 
Then  she  became  quiet  again  and  resumed  her 
slumbers.  In  April,  1908,  when  her  menstruation 
stopped,  she  woke  up,  left  her  bed  and  has  led  a 
normal  life  since. 

Dr.  Toedenstrom  who  describes  the  case  states 
that  she  looked  incredibly  young.  Two  weeks 
after  she  left  her  bed  she  had  become  strong  enough 
to  take  charge  of  the  household. 

Stekel,  discussing  this  strange  case  in  one  of 
his  lectures,  said:  "This  woman  spent  the  entire 
time  of  her  womanhood  in  sleep,  for  she  fell  asleep 
at  the  time  of  her  first  menstruation  period  and 
her  awakening  coincided  with  her  climacteric. 
She  was  a  child  and  wished  to  remain  a  child. 
The  first  question  she  asked  on  arising,  'Where  is 
mama?'  shows  that  she  was  suffering  from  psychic 
infantilism.  It  is  probable  that  dreams  of  child- 
[26] 


The  Flight  from  Reality 


hood  filled  her  thirty-year  sleep  and  she  may  even 
have  dreamt  that  she  was  still  an  unborn  child  for 
whom  life  had  not  yet  begun." 

Medical  literature  contains  many  reports  of 
freakish  cases  in  which  the  subject  falls  asleep 
suddenly,  while  attending  to  duties  of  an  uninter- 
esting character;  a  young  waiter,  for  instance,  fall- 
ing asleep  while  waiting  on  a  table,  remaining  ab- 
solutely motionless  for  a  whole  minute  and  then 
waking  up  and  resuming  his  work.  Manaceine 
mentions  two  similar  cases  she  observed  personally. 
Both  patients  were  illiterate  and  of  slow  intellect. 
One  of  them,  a  housemaid  of  nineteen,  was  a  sound 
sleeper  at  night  and  yet,  in  the  day  time,  one  could 
never  be  sure  of  her  remaining  awake.  She  fell 
asleep  once  in  the  act  of  announcing  a  visitor  and 
while  bringing  in  a  tray  loaded  with  cups  of  coffee. 
The  other  was  a  woman  of  fifty,  who  was  employed 
as  a  nurse  until  one  day,  falling  asleep  suddenly, 
she  dropped  an  infant  on  the  floor  and  almost 
killed  him.  In  both  the  pulse  was  remarkably 
slow  (a  vagotonic  symptom) :  in  the  girl  it  varied 
from  50  to  70  when  awake,  in  the  older  woman 
from  40  to  60. 

An  epidemic  of  sleeping  fits,  lasting  only  a  few 
minutes  at  a  time,  raged  for  several  years  in  a 
small  German  town  near  Wiirzburg.     The  attacks 

[27] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

took  place  at  any  moment  and  were  liable  to  leave 
the  patient  immobilized  in  some  curious  position. 
It  was  the  weaker  part  of  the  population,  physically 
and  mentally,  which  was  affected  by  that  curious 
trouble,  apparently  transmitted  from  parents  to 
children,  probably,  as  all  neurotic  complaints  are, 
through  imitation. 

Stekel  considers  hysterical  and  epileptic  fits  as 
forms  of  morbid  sleep  during  which  hysterics 
gratify  sexual  cravings  and  epileptics  sadistic  crav- 
ings. 

This  is  how  Dr.  Isador  Abrahamson  describes, 
from  recent  cases  observed  at  Mount  Sinai  Hos- 
pital, the  course  of  lethargic  encephalitis  which  is 
one  of  the  scientific  names  coined  to  designate  the 
sleeping  sickness: 

"At  the  onset  of  the  disease,  there  is  a  period 
of  variable  duration  in  which  the  patient  experi- 
ences increasing  difficulty  in  attending  to  his  work. 
Next  a  time  of  yawning  ensues,  in  which  there  may 
be  also  the  irritability  of  the  overtired.  Then  the 
eyes  close,  chiefly  from  lack  of  interest,  .  .  . 
(The  patient's)  pulse,  temperature,  and  respira- 
tion may  all  be  of  a  normal  character.  .  .  .  From 
the  depth  of  this  seeming  slumber,  he  may  respond 
immediately  when  questioned  and  his  short  hut 
coherent  answers  show  no  loss  either  of  memory  or 
[28] 


The  Flight  from  Reality 


of  orientation.  .  .  .  His  answer  given,  he  straight- 
way resumes  his  seeming  sleep.  .  .  .  His  attitude 
expresses  a  desire  to  he  let  alone,  a  desire  which 
is  sometimes  articulate  in  him.  .  .  .  The  somno- 
lence may  deepen  into  a  stupor  from  which  the 
patient  is  not  easily  aroused  to  conscious  repose. 
...  In  the  night  watches  ...  a  restless  delirium 
of  inconstant  severity  often  appears.  Spontaneous 
movements  and  sounds  are  made.  The  movements 
are  purposeful  graspings  and  pointings  at  unseen 
things,  tossings  and  turnings.   .  .  ." 

The  author  adds  in  another  part  of  his  article 
that  "The  depth  of  the  somnolence  and  also  its 
duration  are  unrelated  to  the  severity  of  the  cere- 
bral lesions.  .  .  .  The  extent  of  the  mental  dis- 
turbance bears  no  correspondence  to  the  extent  of 
the  lesions,  the  amount  of  fever  or  the  blood  pic- 
ture. .  .  ."     [Italics  mine.] 

We  have  a  perfect  picture  of  a  flight  from  re- 
ality into  a  somnolence  into  which  the  unconscious 
complexes  force  at  times  a  terrifying  presentation 
of  the  dreaded  reality  through  nightmares. 

The  few  cases  of  sleeping  sickness  reported  in 
recent  medical  literature  show  a  decided  neurotic 
trend  in  the  subjects  affected  and  reveal  circum- 
stances in  the  patient's  life  which  would  make  a 
flight  from  reality  highly  desirable. 

[29] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

One  typical  case  reported  to  me  by  a  Boston 
physician  who  personally  considers  the  sleeping 
sickness  as  being  "unquestionably  an  acute  organic 
disease  of  the  cerebro-spinal  system"  has  all  the 
earmarks  of  a  neurotic  affection: 

"The  patient,  a  middle  aged  woman  lost  a  child 
she  loved  dearly  one  year  and  a  half  before  the 
onset  of  the  disease.  The  circumstances  of  the 
child's  death  were  particularly  sad  as  the  mother 
was  not  allowed  to  visit  the  little  sufferer  at  the 
hospital  on  account  of  the  contagious  character  of 
his  disease.  She  also  felt  disturbing  doubts  as  to 
the  competence  of  the  first  physician  who  attended 
her  child. 

"She  had  been  'nervous  and  run  down'  since  the 
child's  death.  She  is  married  to  a  cripple  twenty 
years  her  senior.  She  had  to  go  to  work  in  order 
to  help  support  the  household  and  to  live  with 
relatives  of  her  husband's  who  did  not  contribute 
to  the  pleasantness  of  her  home  life." 

Have  we  not  here  all  the  environmental  condi- 
tions which  would  drive  a  neurotic  to  withdraw  his 
attention  from  reality  through  a  protracted  period 
of  sleep? 

From  the  fact  that  I  have  instituted  a  comparison 
between  sleep  and  the  sleeping  sickness,  the  reader 

[30] 


The  Flight  from  Reality 


should  not  draw  the  conclusion  that  I  attribute  to 
sleep  any  neurotic  character. 

Sleep  is  a  compromise,  as  I  shall  show  later, 
when  discussing  dream  life,  between  what  the  hu- 
man animal  was  meant  to  do  and  what  it  can  do  in 
reality. 

The  neurosis,  also  is  a  compromise,  but  it  is 
a  compromise  that  fails,  while  sleep  is  a  compro- 
mise which  is  successful,  beneficial  and  acceptable 
to  all. 


[31] 


CHAPTER  IV:  HYPNOGOGIG  AND 
HYPNOPOMPIC  VISIONS 

The  curve  of  sleep  depth  shows  that  our  with- 
drawal from  reality  is  not  sudden  but  gradual. 
The  transition  from  wakefulness  to  sleep  is  char- 
acterized at  first  by  blurred  visions,  colours,  shapes, 
moving  objects  with  a  scarcely  defined  outline,  and 
immediately  after  by  curiously  symbolical  visions, 
known  as  hypnogogic  visions. 

Those  phenomena  are  difficult  to  study  for  they 
are  forgotten  by  the  end  of  the  night.  The  ob- 
server has  to  train  himself  to  wake  up  after  a  few 
minutes  of  unconsciousness,  a  result  which  is 
achieved  without  difficulty  after  a  few  trials. 

The  first  visions  of  the  night  are  in  every  sub- 
ject I  have  asked  and  in  myself,  symbolical  of 
the  passage  from  one  state  to  another.  One  hypno- 
gogic vision  I  have  had  many  times  is  of  wading 
slowly  into  a  lake  or  the  sea,  until  the  water  reaches 
to  the  middle  of  my  body  after  which  I  start  swim- 
ming.^ 

1  The  orthodox  Freudian  would  of  course  interpret  such  a  vision 
as  a  symbol  of  an  attempted  regression  to  the  fetal  condition, 
return  to  the  mother's  womb,  etc.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  sleep  is 

[32] 


Hypnagogic  and  Hypnopompic  Visions 

One  night  when  I  had  a  little  difficulty  in  falling 
asleep  my  hypnogogic  vision  represented  a  truck- 
man looking  like  myself  whipping  a  team  of  horses 
hitched  to  a  big  load  who  were  crossing  a  very 
high  bridge  leading  from  the  city  into  the  open. 

Another  night,  after  seeing  the  "Follies,"  I 
dreamt  that  the  police  was  trying  vainly  to  quell  a 
disturbance  and  that  the  rioters  succeeded  in  plac- 
ing their  own  police  in  charge  of  the  disturbance. 
The  newcomers  were  attired  like  the  front  row  girls 
of  the  Follies.  No  more  symbolical  picture  of 
the  whole  nervous  situation  could  be  found.  The 
day's  repressions  being  gradually  replaced  by  the 
"follies"  of  dreamland. 

Not  only  is  the  passage  from  reality  into  dream- 
land thus  symbolized  by  appropriate  representation 
but  the  mental  work  of  reality  gradually  merges 
with  the  mental  work  of  the  sleeping  state. 

Thoughts  of  the  day  merge  directly  with  the 
dream  thoughts.     There  is  no  gap  between  waking 

to  a  certain  extent  a  return  to  the  period  of  the  fetus'  almost  com- 
plete omnipotence  of  thought.  I  have  noticed,  however,  that  I 
never  dream  of  swimming  except  on  days  when  I  have  been 
prevented  from  indulging  in  my  favourite  sport  at  the  shore  or 
in  the  swimming  pool. 

This  is  to  my  mind  a  perfectly  obvious  dream  needing  no  far 
fetched  interpretation,  symbolical  only  in  so  far  as  it  expresses 
my  attitude  to  sleep  (See  chapter  on  Attitudes  reflected  in 
dreams). 

[33] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

thoughts  and  sleeping  thoughts.  This  has  been 
demonstrated  by  Silberer's  experiments. 

"The  very  first  dream,"  Silberer  says,  "visual- 
izes, dramatises  and  interprets  the  very  last  wak- 
ing thought." 

1st  Example:  "I  applied  some  boric  ointment 
to  the  mucous  of  my  nose  before  retiring  to  re- 
lieve a  painful  dryness. 

Dream:  "I  see  some  one  offering  money  to 
some  one  else.  Only  I  notice  that  it  is  my  right 
hand  which  is  putting  money  into  my  left  hand." 

Interpretation:  "I  have  often  thought  that 
this  medication  did  not  help  my  nose  trouble  but 
simply  concealed  it.  The  action  is  therefore  pre- 
sented as  illusory  help." 

2nd  Example:  "I  am  thinking  of  a  dramatic 
scene  in  which  a  character  would  intimate  a  certain 
fact  to  another  character  without  putting  the  thought 
into  words." 

Dream  :  "One  man  is  offering  to  another  man  a 
hot  metallic  cup." 

Interpretation:  "The  cup  transmits  an  im- 
pression of  heat  which  has  not  to  be  expressed 
through  spoken  words." 

3rd  Example:  "I  try  to  remember  something 
which  in  my  sleepy  state  eludes  me." 

Dream:  "I  apply  for  information  to  a  grouchy 
[34] 


Hypnagogic  and  Hypnopompic  Visions 

clerk  who  refuses  to  impart  it  to  me.     The  inter- 
pretation is  obvious." 

4th  Example  :  "I  think  that  many  simple  argu- 
ments could  be  brought  forth  to  prove  some  thesis 
of  mine." 

Dream:  "A  drove  of  white  horses  moves  down- 
ward through  my  field  of  vision.  Interpretation 
obvious." 

Likewise  sleeping  thoughts  gradually  merge 
with  waking  thoughts  in  the  moments  preceding 
awakening. 

The  last  dreams  of  the  night  or  hypnopompic 
visions  generally  dramatize  our  awakening  in  pic- 
turesque, symbolical  fashion. 

Here  are  several  examples  collected  by  Silberer 
from  observations  on  himself: 

"I  return  to  my  home  with  a  party  of  people, 
take  leave  of  them  at  the  door  and  enter." 

"After  visiting  some  place,  I  drive  home  along 
the  same  road  which  lead  me  there." 

"One  morning  I  woke  up  and  decided  to  doze 
off  for  another  half  hour:  I  dreamt  then  that  I 
was  locked  up  in  a  house  and  I  woke  up  saying: 
'I  must  have  the  lock  broken  open.'  " 

In  hypnopompic  visions  we  generally  enter  a 
house,  a  forest,  a  dark  valley  or  take  a  train  or  a 
boat,  or  we  fall    (see  typical  dreams). 

[35] 


CHAPTER  V:  WHERE  DREAMS  COME 
FROM 

To  sleep  does  not  mean  "perchance  to  dream," 
but  to  dream  from  the  very  second  when  we  close 
our  eyes  to  the  time  when  we  open  them  again. 

"But  I  never  dream,"  some  one  will  surely  say. 

To  which  I  will  answer:  Make  experiments  on 
yourself  or  some  one  else.  Have  some  one  wake 
you  up  fifty  times  or  a  hundred  times  in  one  night. 
Repeat  the  experiment  as  many  nights  as  your  con- 
stitution will  allow  and  every  time  you  wake  up, 
you  will  wake  up  with  the  clear  or  confused  mem- 
ory of  some  dream. 

Most  people  forget  their  dreams  as  they  forget 
their  waking  thoughts.  Unless  some  very  striking 
idea  came  to  my  mind  yesterday  afternoon,  I  am 
likely  to  be  embarrassed  if  some  one  asks  me: 
"What  were  you  thinking  of  yesterday  afternoon?" 

We  shall  see  in  another  chapter  that  our  dream 
thoughts  are  not  in  any  way  different  from  our 
waking  thoughts,  and  that  unless  they  have  a 
special  meaning  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
obsess  us  more  than  our  waking  thoughts  do. 
[36] 


Where  Dreams  Come  From 


In  fact,  a  remembered  dream  is  as  important 
as  an  obsessive  idea  and  has  the  same  meaning. 
Thousands  of  futile  dreams  dreamt  in  one  night 
may  not  leave  a  deeper  impression  on  our  "mind" 
than  thousands  of  futile  thoughts  which  flit  through 
our  consciousness  in  one  day. 

Before  considering  the  origin  of  dreams  I  must 
restate  briefly  a  proposition  which  I  have  discussed 
at  length  in  Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour,  the  in- 
divisibility of  the  human  organism. 

The  words  physical  and  mental  are  lacking  in 
any  real  meaning  and  there  is  no  physical  manifes- 
tation which  it  not  inseparably  linked  with  some 
psychic  phenomenon.  Emotions,  secretions  and 
attitudes  may  be  studied  separately  for  the  sake 
of  convenience,  but  in  reality  there  cannot  be  any 
emotion  which  is  not  unavoidably  accompanied  by 
a  secretion  and  betrayed  by  some  attitude,  nor  can 
there  be  any  attitude  which  is  not  accompanied  by 
a  secretion  and  interpreted  by  some  emotion. 

This  must  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  when  we 
attempt  to  answer  the  question:  Where  do  dreams 
come  from? 

If  dreams  "come  from  the  stomach"  why  should 
distressed  minds  seek  refuge  in  them?  If  they  are 
purely  psychic  phenomena,  what  relief  can  they 
aff'ord  to  our  dissatisfied  body? 

[37] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

We  shall  not  deny  that  a  full  bladder  may  at 
times  induce  urination  dreams,  that  a  full  stomach 
may  at  times  conjure  up  anxiety  visions  in  which 
heavy  masses  oppress  us,  or  that  long  continence 
and  the  consequent  accumulation  of  sexual  pro- 
ducts may  be  at  times  responsible  for  sexual 
dreams. 

What  the  physical  theory  of  dreams,  most  scien- 
tifically and  conscientiously  expounded  by  the 
Scandinavian  Mourly  Void,  will  not  explain,  how- 
ever, is  that,  in  one  subject,  a  urination  dream 
may  be  a  pleasurable  visualization  of  relief,  lead- 
ing to  continued  sleep  and,  in  another,  an  anxiety 
episode,  picturing  frustrated  gratification  and  end- 
ing in  an  unpleasant  awakening.  A  heavy  dinner 
may  people  one  sleeper's  visions  with  large  animals 
treading  his  stomach,  and  cause  another  to  dream 
of  vomiting  fits  which  relieve  the  pressure  of  food. 

In  one  sleeper,  sexual  desire  evokes  libidinous 
visions,  in  another,  terrifying  scenes  of  violence. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  very  close  relation  ob- 
served in  thousands  of  cases  between  the  sleeper's 
dreams  and  his  physical  condition,  invalidates  any 
theory  which  would  revert  more  or  less  literally  to 
the  belief  held  in  ancient  times  that  dreams  were 
purely  psychic  phenomena,  visions  sent  by  the 
gods. 
[38] 


Where  Dreams  Come  From 


Maury  whose  book,  "Sleep  and  Dreams,"  pub- 
lished in  1865,  was  probably  the  first  serious  at- 
tempt at  deciphering  the  enigma  of  dream  thoughts, 
had  various  experiments  performed  on  himself  to 
determine  what  dreams  would  be  brought  forth  by 
physical  stimuli. 

He  was  tickled  with  a  feather  on  the  lips  and 
nostrils.  He  dreamt  that  a  mask  of  pitch  was  ap- 
plied to  his  face  and  then  pulled  off,  tearing  the 
skin. 

A  pair  of  tweezers  was  held  close  to  his  ear  and 
struck  with  a  metallic  object.  He  heard  the  tolling 
of  bells  and  thought  of  the  revolutionary  days  of 
1848. 

A  bottle  of  perfume  was  held  to  his  nose.  He 
dreamt  of  the  East  and  of  a  trip  to  Egypt. 

A  lighted  match  was  held  close  to  his  nostrils. 
He  dreamt  that  he  was  on  a  ship  whose  magazine 
had  exploded. 

A  pinch  on  the  back  of  the  neck  suggested  the 
application  of  a  blister  and  evoked  the  memory  of 
a  family  physician. 

A  sensation  of  heat  made  him  dream  that  robbers 
had  entered  the  house  and  were  compelling  the  in- 
mates to  reveal  where  their  money  was  hidden  by 
scorching  the  soles  of  their  feet. 

Words  were  pronounced  aloud.     He  attributed 

[39] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

them  to  some  people  with  whom  he  had  been  talk- 
ing in  his  dreams. 

A  drop  of  water  was  allowed  to  fall  on  his  fore- 
head. He  dreamt  that  he  was  in  Italy,  feeling 
very  hot  and  drinking  wine. 

A  red  light  suggested  to  him  a  storm  at  sea. 

Struck  on  the  neck,  he  dreamt  that  he  was  a 
revolutionist,  arrested,  tried,  sentenced  to  death 
and  guillotined. 

I  have  had  some  of  Maury's  experiments  re- 
peated on  myself  and  the  connection  between  the 
physical  stimulus  and  the  content  of  the  dream 
leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  direct  relation  between 
the  two.  On  the  other  hand,  the  reader  will  notice 
that  the  same  stimuli  applied  to  Maury  and  to  me 
produced  absolutely  different  results.  Compare 
my  first  and  second  experiments  with  his  first  and 
third. 

1.  I  was  tickled  on  the  nose  with  a  feather.  I 
dreamt  that  I  was  entering  a  forest  and  that 
branches  and  leaves  were  brushing  against  my  face. 
I  made  an  effort  to  push  them  away  with  my  hand. 
(I  had  taken  a  ride  through  Central  Park  that  very 
day). 

2.  A  bottle  of  perfume  was  held  open  under  my 
nose. 

I  dreamt  of  a  landscape  with  thick  clouds  and 
[40] 


Where  Dreams  Come  From 


mist  to  the  left.  Two  dark  figures  carrying  grips 
were  hurrying  toward  the  right  where  there  seemed 
to  be  open  fields,  flowers,  and  sunlight.  (The  day 
preceding  the  dream  had  been  cloudy.) 

3.  My  nose  was  stroked  with  a  piece  of  paper. 
I  dreamt  I  met  a  certain  writer  who  asked  me 

whether  another  writer  had  seen  a  certain  lady  and 
her  daughter.  I  answered  rather  indifl'erently  and 
went  on  my  way.  Then  I  saw  either  the  other 
writer  or  myself  seated  before  a  window  and  show- 
ing a  tall  gaunt  woman  and  another  indistinct 
figure,  either  Japanese  prints  or  some  manuscript, 
and  I  woke  up. 

(The  day  preceding  the  dream  I  had  revised 
a  manuscript  for  a  woman  and  also  spoken  of  one 
of  the  two  writers.) 

4.  Cold  steel  was  applied  to  my  throat. 

I  dreamt  that  a  cold  wind  was  blowing;  I  tried 
to  turn  up  my  overcoat  collar  and  woke  myself  up. 

Carl  Dreher  has  devised  an  apparatus  which 
can  be  set  to  throw  flashes  of  light  at  a  given  time 
during  the  night  and  then  wakes  him  up  by  means 
of  a  buzzer.  The  flashes  have  translated  them- 
selves in  many  cases  into  interesting  visions:  In 
one  dream  the  last  picture  seen  before  the  alarm 
went  off  was  that  of  a  building  in  front  of  which 
stood  very  white  marble  columns  standing  on  a 

[41] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

background  of  intense  black.  On  another  occasion 
extremely  bright  green  snakes  hung  from  trees,  the 
space  between  the  snakes  being  very  dark.  On 
another  occasion  he  was  talking  to  a  girl  who  de- 
clares herself  to  be  "intermittently  in  love."  In 
another  dream,  he  saw  himself  operating  a  moving 
picture  machine  which  threw  flashes  on  the  screen 
regardless  of  whether  he  opened  or  closed  the 
switch.  After  many  such  experiments,  he  saw  his 
apparatus  in  a  dream  and  woke  up  without  having 
been  directly  affected  by  the  light. 

In  this  last  dream  we  have  a  case  of  dream  in- 
sight, the  dreamer  refusing  to  pay  any  attention 
to  a  stimulus  which  has  become  familiar.  This 
explains  the  phenomenon  of  adaptation  to  stimuli. 
People  whose  bedroom  is  near  some  source  of  regu- 
lar constant  noise  can  sleep  in  spite  of  that  stimulus 
for  their  nervous  system  no  longer  translates  it 
into  fear;  nor  has  it  to  interpret  it  lest  it  might 
create  fear. 

Every  one  of  the  dreams  thus  produced  arti- 
ficially were  closely  related  to  experiences  of  the 
day  before  and  to  some  of  the  dreamer's  memories 
and  complexes. 

The  dreamer's  unconscious  was  merely  stimu- 
lated by  the  light  flashes  to  express  itself  through 
images  including  an  allusion  to  those  flashes. 
[42] 


Where  Dreams  Come  From 


In  other  words,  the  physical  stimulus,  be  it  an 
impression  made  upon  one  of  the  sense  organs  or 
an  inner  secretion,  is  interpreted  by  the  sleeper 
according  to  the  ideas  which  dominate  the  sleeper's 
mind  at  the  time,  memories  of  recent  experiences 
or  obsessive  ideas. 

Which  means  that  the  personality  of  the  dreamer 
expresses  itself  through  his  dreams.  We  need  not 
heed  Pythagoras'  warning  against  eating  beans.  It 
is  not  the  stimulus  that  counts;  it  is  the  end  result. 
And  the  end  result  seems  to  depend  from  the  mem- 
ories which  have  accumulated  in  our  autonomic 
nerves. 

Freud  compares  the  dream  work  to  a  promoter 
who  could  never  carry  out  his  brilliant  ideas  if  he 
could  not  draw  upon  funds  accumulated  elsewhere 
(in  the  unconscious). 

Silberer  says  that  the  appearance  of  a  dream  is 
like  the  outbreak  of  a  war.  There  is  a  popular 
tendency  among  the  ignorant  to  attribute  a  war  to 
some  superficial,  visible  cause,  disagreement,  in- 
sult, invasion.  The  real  causes,  however,  are 
much  deeper  and  lie  not  only  in  the  present  but 
in  the  past  as  well. 


[43] 


CHAPTER  VI:  CONVENIENCE  DREAMS 

Some  of  the  hypnogogic  visions  and  experi- 
mental dreams  I  have  mentioned  contradict  the 
wide-spread  belief  that  sound  sleep  is  untroubled 
by  dreams. 

The  hypnagogic  vision  I  have  so  often,  that  I 
wade  into  a  body  of  water  and  finally  start  swim- 
ming, only  adds  one  more  pleasant  feature  to  my 
escape  from  reality.  Swimming  is  really  my 
favourite  sport. 

When  my  nose  was  tickled  and  I  interpreted 
the  stimulus  as  foliage  brushing  my  face  on  en- 
tering a  forest,  that  vision  was  not  meant  to  awaken 
me,  but  on  the  contrary  to  keep  me  asleep  by  ex- 
plaining away  the  tickling  sensation  and  removing 
any  sense  of  fear  which  would  have  compelled  me 
to  take  notice  once  more  of  reality  and  protect 
myself. 

Such  dreams  have  been  designated  as  conveni- 
ence dreams. 

Dreams  of  urination  can  be  considered  as  typical 
convenience  dreams.  In  the  morning,  when  the 
pressure  of  urine  on  the  walls  of  the  bladder  be- 
[44] 


Convenience  Dreams 


comes  stronger,  dreams  build  up  a  convenient  ex- 
planation around  that  unpleasant  stimulus.  Our 
wish  to  urinate  is  either  represented  as  gratified 
or  we  are  shown  the  impossibility  of  gratifying  it 
(no  toilet,  doors  locked,  people  looking,  etc.). 
Unless  the  pressure  is  absolutely  unbearable,  we 
generally  sleep  on,  satisfied  or  discouraged  by  such 
convenience  dreams. 

Freud  tells  in  his  "Interpretation  of  Dreams"  of 
a  striking  convenience  dream  of  his  and  of  a  varia- 
tion it  underwent  on  one  occasion:  "If  in  the 
evening  I  eat  anchovies,  olives  or  any  other  strongly 
salted  food,  I  become  thirsty  at  night,  whereupon 
I  awaken.  The  awakening,  however,  is  preceded 
by  a  dream,  which,  each  time  has  the  same  content, 
namely  that  I  am  drinking.  The  dream  serves  a 
function,  the  nature  of  which  I  soon  guess.  If  I 
succeed  in  assuaging  my  thirst  by  means  of  a 
dream  that  I  am  drinking,  I  need  not  wake  up  in 
order  to  satisfy  that  need.  The  dream  substitutes 
itself  for  action,  as  elsewhere  in  life.  This  same 
dream  recently  appeared  in  modified  form.  On 
this  occasion  I  became  thirsty  before  going  to  bed 
and  emptied  the  glass  of  water  which  stood  on  a 
chest  near  my  bed.  Several  hours  later  in  the 
night,  came  a  new  attack  of  thirst,  accompanied 
by  discomfort.     In  order  to  obtain  water  I  would 

[45] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

have  had  to  get  up  and  fetch  the  glass  which  stood 
on  a  chest  near  my  wife's  bed.  I  appropriately 
dreamt  that  my  wife  was  giving  me  to  drink  from 
a  vase,  an  Etruscan  cinerary  urn.  But  the  water 
in  it  tasted  so  salty,  apparently  from  the  ashes, 
that  I  had  to  wake  up." 

On  a  chilly  summer  night  a  woman  patient  had 
the  following  dream: 

"A  man  took  me  in  a  canoe  to  the  middle  of  a 
lake  and  upset  the  canoe,  saying:  'Now  you  be- 
long to  me.'  " 

She  woke  up  shivering. 

The  lake,  the  canoe  upset  and  the  man  in  the 
dream  were  associated  with  many  conscious 
thoughts  and  memories  of  hers.  But  this  was 
mainly  a  convenience  dream,  which  endeavoured  to 
explain  away  the  chilliness  of  the  night  through  an 
appropriate  scene.  When  the  unavoidable  awak- 
ening took  place  it  was  dramatized,  as  it  is  in  so 
many  cases  of  awakening,  through  a  fall  accom- 
panied by  a  certain  fear  of  death. 

The  few  examples  I  have  given  and  which  could 
be  multiplied,  tend  to  show  that  the  dream,  far 
from  being  a  disturber  of  sleep,  is  sleep's  best  pro- 
tector. 

It  seeks  to  explain  away  physical  stimuli  which 
might  cause  the  sleeper  to  awake  and  it  visualizes 
[46] 


Convenience  Dreams 


many  reasons  for  not  experiencing  the  fear  usually 
connected  with  a  certain  stimulus. 

In  every  convenience  dream  which  I  have  ana- 
lysed, I  have  found  a  close  connection  between  the 
image  conjured  up  by  the  dream  work  and  the 
ideas  generally  occupying  the  dreamer's  mind  in 
his  waking  states. 

In  almost  every  case  it  could  also  be  noticed 
that  the  convenience  dream  made  use  of  some  ex- 
perience or  observation  of  the  previous  waking 
state,  which  increases  the  plausibility  of  the 
dream's  visualization. 


[47] 


CHAPTER  VII:  DREAM  LIFE 

The  life  we  lead  in  our  dreams,  especially  in 
healthy,  pleasant  dreams,  is  simpler  and  easier 
than  our  waking  life. 

We  obliterate  distance  and  transport  ourselves 
wherever  our  fancy  chooses;  our  strength  is  her- 
culean; we  defy  the  law  of  gravitation  and  rise  or 
soar  with  or  without  wings;  we  brave  law  and  cus- 
tom; we  abandon  all  modesty  and  make  ourselves 
the  centre  of  the  world,  which  is  OUR  world,  not 
any  one  else's  world. 

The  simplification  of  life  is  attained  in  dreams 
through  three  processes,  visualization,  condensa- 
tion and  symbolization. 

The  dream  is  always  a  vision.  Other  sensations 
than  visual  ones  may  be  experienced  in  dreams  but 
tfiey  are  only  secondary  elements. 

In  other  words,  we  may  now  and  then  hear 
sounds,  perceive  odours,  etc.,  but  the  dream  is 
based  primarily  on  a  scene  which  is  perceived 
visually,  not  on  soimds,  odours,  etc.,  now  and  then 
accompanied  by  a  visual  perception. 

In  fact  we  seldom  hear  sounds  in  our  dreams, 
[45] 


Dream  Life 

unless  they  are  actual  sounds  produced  in  our 
immediate  environment ;  the  people  who  address  us 
in  dreams  do  not  actually  emit  sounds  but  seem  to 
communicate  their  thought  to  us  directly  without 
any  auditory  medium.  Seldom  do  we  taste  or 
smell  things  in  dreams. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  translate  every  stimulus 
reaching  our  senses  in  sleep,  be  it  sound,  taste, 
smell,  touch,  into  a  visual  presentation.  This  pro- 
cess is  to  be  compared  to  the  gesticulation  of  prim- 
itive individuals  who  attempt  to  visualize  every- 
thing they  describe,  indicating  the  length,  height, 
bulk  of  objects  through  more  or  less  appropriate 
mimic  and  who  convey  the  idea  of  a  bad  odour 
by  holding  their  nose,  of  pleasing  food,  by  rubbing 
their  stomach,  etc. 

The  dramatization  of  every  thought  and  every 
problem  follows  the  line  of  least  effort.  And  this 
explains  the  popularity  of  the  movies,  the  enjoy- 
ment of  which  does  not  presuppose  on  the  part  of 
the  audience  any  capacity  to  conceive  abstract 
ideas. 

Movie  audiences  are  undoubtedly  the  least  in- 
telligent aggregations  of  people.  They  are  not  told 
that  a  crime  has  been  committed,  they  are  shown 
the  crime  while  it  is  being  committed.  Captions 
warn  them  of  what  they  are  going  to  see,  that  they 

[49] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

may  not  misunderstand  the  meaning  of  any  scene. 
The  movie,  like  our  unconscious,  translates  every 
thought  into  a  visual  sensation,  and  when  a  psy- 
chological change  cannot  very  well  be  visualized, 
for  instance  when  the  villain  decides  not  to  kill  the 
ingenue,  the  fact  is  flashed  on  the  screen  in  large 
type. 

Pleasures  of  the  eye  are  probably  stronger  and 
simpler  than  those  vouchsafed  by  other  sensory 
organs.^  The  most  uninteresting  parade  will  at- 
tract thousands  of  people,  many  more  for  instance, 
than  free  concerts  in  the  open.  Illustrated  lectures 
appeal  to  more  people  than  lectures  without  illus- 
trations. Displays  in  shop  windows,  picturesque 
signs,  possess  a  greater  selling  power  than  the  best 
advertising  copy. 

In  our  waking  life,  we  express  our  thoughts  to 
ourselves  and  others  through  the  algebra  of  ab- 
stract concepts.  We  speak  of  length,  height,  vol- 
ume, weight,  hardness,  coldness,  etc.  It  is  doubt- 
ful, however,  whether  we  can  imagine  length  with- 
out thinking  specifically  of  something  long.  In 
our  dreams,  the  concept  length  disappears  and  is 
always  replaced  by  something  long. 

1  Dr.  Percy  Fridenberg  has  shown  the  exaggerated  shock  reac- 
tions felt  by  the  organism  after  the  eye  sujffers  an  injury  or  is 
operated  on,  and  recalls  Crile's  saying  that  our  activation  pat- 
terns come  from  sight. 

[50]  


Dream  Life 

We  notice  that  abstract  thinking  is  more  tire- 
some than  descriptive  thinking,  that  abstract  facts 
demand  more  exertion  in  order  to  be  grasped,  than 
concrete  facts.  A  philosopher  expounding  his 
theories  to  an  audience  tires  himself  and  the  audi- 
ence quicker  than  an  explorer  would,  describing 
his  travels  and  possibly  illustrating  his  talk  by- 
means  of  lantern  slides. 

Dream  life  is  further  simplified  through  conden- 
sation. This  process  is  the  one  through  which,  in 
waking  life,  we  reach  generalizations.  When  we 
think  of  a  house  we  select  the  essential  character- 
istics of  the  various  houses  we  have  seen,  the  prop- 
erties wherein  a  house  essentially  differs  from,  let 
us  say,  a  bird  or  a  river.  In  our  dreams,  con- 
densation is  less  subtle  and  more  directly  based 
upon  our  experience. 

We  combine  several  persons  into  one,  selecting 
as  a  rule  the  most  striking  features  of  every  one 
of  them.  We  may  see  a  dream  character  with  the 
eyes  of  one  person,  the  nose  of  another  and  the 
beard  of  a  third  one. 

Freud  having  made  one  proposal  to  two  differ- 
ent men,  Dr.  M.  and  his  brother,  the  former  having 
a  beard  and  the  latter  being  clean  shaven  and 
suffering  from  hip  trouble,  combined  them  in  a 

[51] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 


dream  in  a  figure  which  looked  like  Dr.  M.,  but 
was  beardless  and  limped. 

One  of  Ferenczi's  patients  dreamt  of  a  monster 
with  the  head  of  a  physician,  the  body  of  a  horse 
and  draped  in  a  nightgown. 

Silberer  dreamt  of  an  animal  which  had  the  head 
of  a  tiger  and  the  body  of  a  horse. 

This  is  a  process  similar  to  the  one  which  in 
the  infancy  of  the  race  gave  birth  to  strange  com- 
posite gods  and  mythological  creatures  like  the 
Assyrian  bull  a  combination  of  man's  intelligence, 
the  bull's  strength  and  the  bird's  power  of  flight, 
the  various  Egyptian  deities  in  whom  the  process 
was  reversed,  for  so  many  had  the  heads  of  ani- 
mals and  the  bodies  of  men,  the  satyrs  and  syrens, 
combining  respectively  man  and  goat,  woman  and 
fish,  Pegasus,  the  winged  horse,  etc. 

Finally,  dream  life  is  simplified  through  the  sym- 
bolic representation  of  human  beings  or  inanimate 
things. 

In  symbolization,  one  striking  characteristic  of 
some  complicated  object  is  isolated  from  the  others 
and  some  other  object  with  only  one  characteristic 
substituted  for  it.  Slang  is  made  up  of  such  sym- 
bolizations.  Think  of  the  expression  "bats  in  the 
belfry,"  in  which  the  complicated  human  head  is 
replaced  by  an  architectural  detail  much  simpler  in 
[52] 


Dream  Life 

character  and  occupying  in  an  edifice  the  same 
position  which  the  head  occupies  in  human  anat- 
omy. Then,  instead  of  describing  absurd  ideas, 
of  a  sinister  colouring,  without  definite  direction, 
we  simply  visualize  queer  creatures,  half  bird  and 
half  mouse,  flitting  about  blindly. 

Instead  of  explaining  that  the  central  figure  of 
the  christian  religion  is  a  godlike  creature  who 
died  crucified,  we  select  the  most  striking  detail 
of  the  Passion,  the  cross,  which  to  the  initiated  and 
uninitiated  alike  signifies  Christianity.  In  many 
cases  we  do  not  even  represent  the  cross  as  that 
instrument  of  torture  really  looked  but  we  simplify 
it,  we  symbolize  it,  by  using  a  conventional  design 
in  which  the  proportion  between  the  cross  pieces 
has  been  entirely  disregarded. 

Symbolization  is  a  reduction  of  an  object  to  one 
essential  detail  which  has  struck  us  as  more  im- 
portant than  the  others. 

A  child  will  designate  a  watch  as  a  "tick-tick," 
a  dog  as  a  "bow-wow,"  because  to  his  simple  mind, 
ticking  and  barking  are  the '  essential  characteris- 
tics of  a  watch  and  a  dog. 

In  dreams,  we  simplify  the  concept  of  the  body 
and  often  represent  it  by  a  house.  The  authority 
vested  in  the  father  and  mother  causes  them  often 
to  be  symbolized  by  important  personages,  etc. 

[53] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

Without  any  more  explanation,  I  shall  sum  up 
the  various  dream  symbols  whose  selection  is  easily 
understood. 

Birth  is  often  symbolized  by  a  plunge  into  water 
or  some  one  climbing  out  of  it  or  rescuing  some  one 
from  the  water. 

Death  is  represented  by  taking  a  journey,  being 
dead,  by  darksome  suggestions. 

A  great  many  symbols  in  dreams  are  sexual  sym- 
bols. The  figure  3,  all  elongated  or  sharp  objects, 
such  as  sticks,  umbrellas,  knifes,  daggers,  revolv- 
ers, plowshares,  pencils,  files,  objects  from  which 
water  flows,  faucets,  fountains,  animals  such  as 
reptiles  and  fishes,  in  certain  cases  hats  and  cloaks 
are  used  to  represent  the  male  sex. 

The  female  sex  is  symbolized  on  the  contrary  by 
hollow  objects,  pits,  caves,  boxes,  trunks,  pockets, 
ships. 

The  breasts  are  represented  by  apples,  peaches 
and  fruits  in  general,  balconies,  etc. 

Fertility  is  symbolized  by  ploughed  fields,  gar- 
dens, etc. 

I  have  shown  in  another  book,  "Psychoanalysis, 
Its  History,  Theory  and  Practice,"  that  symbols  are 
absolutely  universal  and  that  the  folklore  of  the 
various  races  and  of  the  various  centuries  draws 
upon  the  same  material  for  the  purpose  of  simpli- 
[54] 


Dream  Life 

fied  representation.  Differences  in  climate,  fauna 
and  flora  are  purely  superficial.  Dwellers  of  the 
Polar  regions  are  not  likely  to  compare  anything 
to  a  palm  tree  which  they  have  never  seen,  nor 
will  tropical  races  symbolize  coldness  through 
snowfields. 

Experiments  made  by  Dr.  Karl  Schrotter  have 
confirmed  Freud's  and  Jung's  theories  of  symbol- 
ization  in  dreams.  To  the  uninitiated  and  scepti- 
cal, dream  symbols  generally  appear  rather  ludic- 
rous fancies  and  not  a  few  opponents  of  psycho- 
analysis hold  that  symbols  were  resorted  to  by 
analysts  unable  to  read  an  obvious  wish  fulfilment 
in  every  dream. 

Schrotter  hypnotized  his  patients,  then  suggested 
to  them  a  dream  outline,  ordering  them  also  to 
indicate  through  an  appropriate  gesture  when  the 
dream  would  begin  and  end.  This  enabled  him, 
by  the  way,  to  record  the  duration  of  every  dream. -^ 

He  then  awakened  the  subject  and  made  him  tell 
his  dream. 

One  of  his  patients,  a  woman  drawing  toward 
middle  age,  who  had  been  greatly  upset  when  she 
learnt  that  the  man  she  loved  was  suffering  from 

^  The  duration  of  a  dream  is  not  as  short  as  some  of  Maury's 
experiments  would  lead  us  to  believe.  Some  of  the  experimental 
dreams  timed  by  Schroetter  lasted  almost  as  long  as  it  takes  to 
relate  them. 

[55] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

syphilis,  was  asked  to  have  a  dream  symbolizing 
her  state  of  mind.     Here  is  the  vision  she  had: 

"I  am  walking  through  a  forest  on  an  autumn 
day.  The  path  is  steep  and  I  feel  chilly.  Some 
one  whom  I  cannot  distinguish  is  near  me.  I  only 
feel  the  touch  of  a  hand.  I  am  very  thirsty.  I 
would  like  to  slake  my  thirst  at  a  spring  but  there 
is  a  sign  on  the  spring  that  means  poison:  a  skull 
and  cross  bones." 

The  fancy  is  rather  poetical  and  this  example 
is  quite  typical  of  the  symbolization  of  our  life's 
incidents  by  the  dream  work. 

A  patient  with  a  strong  resistance  to  the  analytic 
method  saw  me  in  a  dream  "carrying  a  fake  re- 
frigerator full  of  make-believe  meats,  vegetables 
and  fruits." 

The  interpretation  is  obvious.  I  am  carrying  in 
a  deceptive  way  an  assortment  of  ideas  which  can 
be  of  no  use  to  any  one. 

The  refrigerator  implies  that  the  ideas  are  not 
even  new  but  old  and  stale. 

The  patient's  repressions  were  such  that,  al- 
though the  dream  struck  him  as  strange  and  he 
remembered  it  several  months,  he  was  unable  to 
puzzle  out  its  meaning.  It  expressed  his  mental 
state  at  the  time  and  yet  having  made  up  his  mind 
not  to  doubt  me  or  the  analytic  treatment,  he  be- 
[56] 


Dream  Life 

come  unable  to  accept  any  disparaging  thought  con- 
sciously. 

Unconsciously,  however,  he  expressed  his  doubts 
in  most  striking  symbolism  which  he  did  not  him- 
self understand. 

This  should  be  borne  in  mind  if  we  wish  to  un- 
derstand the  psychology  of  nightmares.  For  in 
nightmares  we  may  express  a  wish  through  a  sym- 
bol which  expresses  it  fittingly,  but  which  we  do  not 
understand  and  which,  on  that  account,  may 
frighten  us. 

Let  those  who  sneer  at  the  study  of  symbols 
watch  some  of  the  attitudes  assumed  by  insane 
people  ^  who  have  reached  the  lowest  level  of  de- 
terioration. Let  them  see  a  picture  published  in 
the  issue  of  the  Journal  of  Mental  and  Nervous 
Disease  for  January,  1920,  and  which  represents  a 
hospital  patient  who  has  reached  the  lowest  degree 
of  infantilism.  The  patient  hung  herself  in  a 
blanket  attached  to  a  nail  in  front  of  a  window. 
There  she  spent  her  days  in  the  characteristic  atti- 
tude of  the  unborn  child  in  the  womb. 

Everything  in  that  attitude  was  symbolical  of  her 
regression  to,  not  only  infancy,  but  the  prenatal 
condition. 

1  Insanity  is  simply  a  day  dream  from  which  we  cannot  awake 
at  will. 

[57] 


CHAPTER  VIII:  WISH  FULFILMENT 

An  evening  paper  published  recently  a  car- 
toon showing  a  kiddie  in  bed  who  asks  his 
mother:  "What  makes  me  dream?" — "You  eat 
too  much  meat,"  the  mother  answers.  The  next 
scene  is  laid  in  the  kitchen  where  the  mother  finds 
her  child  ransacking  the  ice  box  for  meat. 

Parents  could  testify  to  the  illustrator's  knowl- 
edge of  the  childish  soul.  Children  like  to  dream 
and  Freud's  statement  that  every  dream  contains 
the  fulfilment  of  some  wish  is  confirmed  by  the 
dreams  of  healthy  children. 

Children  attain  in  their  sleep  visions  the  simple 
pleasures  which  are  denied  them  in  their  waking 
states. 

Freud's  little  daughter,  three  and  a  half  years 
old,  being  kept  one  day  on  a  rather  strict  diet, 
owing  to  some  gastric  disturbance,  was  heard  to 
call  excitedly  in  her  sleep:  "Anna  Freud,  straw- 
berry, huckleberry,  omelette,  pap." 

On  one  occasion  she  was  taken  across  a  lake  and 
enjoyed  the  trip  so  much  that  she  cried  bitterly  at 
the  landing  when  compelled  to  leave  the  boat.  The 
[58] 


Wish  Fulfilment 


next  morning  she  told  the  family  a  dream  in  which 
she  had  been  sailing  on  the  lake. 

Freud's  little  nephew,  Hermann,  aged  twenty- 
one  months,  was  once  given  the  task  of  offering  his 
uncle,  as  a  birthday  present,  a  little  basket  full  of 
cherries.  He  performed  that  duty  rather  reluc- 
tantly. The  following  day  he  awakened  joyously 
with  the  information  which  could  only  have  been 
derived  from  a  dream:  "Hermann  ate  all  the 
cherries." 

The  London  Times  of  Nov.  8,  1919,  had  a  report 
of  a  lecture  by  Dr.  C.  W.  Kimmins,  chief  inspec- 
tor of  the  London  Education  Committee,  on  the 
significance  of  children's  dreams.  He  based  his 
statements  on  the  written  records  of  the  dreams 
of  500  children  between  the  ages  of  eight  and 
sixteen  years. 

Up  to  the  age  of  ten,  dreams  of  eating  predomin- 
ated, but  their  number  fell  off  after  ten,  when 
dreams  of  visits  to  the  country  began  to  increase. 
Dreams  of  presents  and  eating  at  all  ages  from 
eight  to  fourteen,  were  much  more  frequent  with 
children  of  the  poorer  classes  that  with  those  from 
well-to-do  districts  and  there  was  an  appreciable 
increase  of  their  number  about  Christmas  time. 
Retrospective  dreams  were  very  uncommon  among 
all  children. 

[59] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

Obvious  wish  fulfilment  dreams  were  less  com- 
mon among  boys  than  among  girls,  the  proportion 
being  respectively  twenty-eight  and  forty-two  per 
cent. 

Boys  below  ten  had  more  fear  dreams  than  girls 
of  the  same  age.  In  both  sexes  it  was  some  "old 
man"  who  terrified  the  dreamers.  Both  sexes  suf- 
fered equally  from  the  fear  of  animals,  lions, 
tigers  and  bulls  in  the  case  of  the  boys,  dogs,  rats, 
snakes  and  mice  in  the  case  of  the  girls. 

From  ten  to  fifteen  a  falling  off  in  the  number 
of  fear  dreams  was  very  noticeable  among  boys, 
whereas  among  girls  it  rather  increased. 

That  increase  was  especially  striking  among  girls 
of  16  and  over,  who  were  generally  frightened 
by  animals  and  strange  men  and  women. 

When  school  life  played  a  part  in  children's 
dreams  it  was  more  frequently  the  playgrounds 
than  the  classrooms  which  were  visualized. 

The  war  affected  boys'  more  than  girls'  dreams. 
The  dreaming  boy  was  a  valorous  fighter,  men- 
tioned in  dispatches,  rewarded  with  the  Victoria 
Cross,  thanked  personally  by  the  King;  or  he  re- 
turned home  wildly  cheered  by  crowds. 

Girls,  thirteen  or  over,  saw  themselves  as  Red 
Cross  nurses,  but  no  such  dreams  were  observed  in 
girls  below  ten. 
[60] 


Wish  Fulfilment 


Normal,  healthy  children  delighted  in  dream- 
ing and  telling  their  dreams  with  a  wealth  of  de- 
tail. 

Dr.  Kimmins  mentioned  that,  while  the  dreams 
of  school  children  were  generally  easy  to  interpret, 
the  dreams  of  students  from  18  to  22  "were  so 
heavily  camouflaged  that  it  would  be  impossible 
for  any  one  who  was  not  a  trained  expert  in  psy- 
choanalysis to  deal  with  them  satisfactorily." 

We  can  see  how  the  repression  made  necessary 
by  life  conditions  in  modem  communities  slowly 
but  surely  transforms  the  obvious  wish-fulfilment 
dreams  of  children  into  the  symbolical  and  often 
distressing  visions  of  the  adult.  The  development 
of  sexuality  in  boys  and  girls  and  the  repression 
to  which  it  is  submitted  explains  easily  the  pro- 
portion of  fear  dreams  in  girls  and  boys. 

Sexual  talk  and  sexual  curiosity  are  more  com- 
mon among  boys  than  girls  and  therefore  occupy 
the  boys'  minds  more  constantly  than  the  girls' 
minds.  On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the  boys 
above  sixteen  find  forms  of  sexual  satisfaction  of 
which  the  girls  of  the  same  age  are  deprived. 
Fear  dreams  are  therefore  more  frequent  among 
growing  girls,  being  simply  a  symbolical  form  of 
sexual  gratification. 

The  dreams  of  adults  are  far  from  being  as  uni- 

[61] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

formly  pleasurable  as  those  of  young  and  healthy 
children. 

A  few  of  them  are  frankly  pleasant;  most  of 
them  are  apparently  indifferent  and  a  few  of  them 
frankly  unpleasant. 

The  pleasant  dreams  of  the  adults  require  as 
little  interpretation  as  those  of  children  and  are 
obviously  the  fulfilment  of  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious wishes. 

A  patient  of  mine,  camping  in  the  woods  alone, 
dreamt  during  a  rainy  night  that  some  of  his 
friends  were  camping  with  him,  that  one  of  them 
had  gone  to  a  neighbouring  inn  to  secure  better 
accommodations  and  finally  that  he  was  in  his  own 
bed  at  home. 

Nordenskjold  in  his  book  "The  Antarctic,"  pub- 
lished in  1904,  mentions  that  during  the  winter 
which  he  spent  in  the  polar  wilderness,  his  dreams 
and  those  of  his  men  "were  more  frequent  and 
more  vivid  than  they  had  ever  been  before.  They 
all  referred  to  the  outer  world  which  was  so  far 
from  us.  .  .  .  Eating  and  drinking  formed  the 
central  point  around  which  most  of  our  dreams 
were  grouped.  One  of  us,  who  was  fond  of  going 
to  big  dinner  parties,  was  exceedingly  glad  when 
he  could  report  in  the  morning  that  he  had  had 
[62] 


Wish  Fulfilment 


a  three  course  dinner.  Another  dreamed  of  to- 
bacco, mountains  of  it;  still  another  dreamed  of  a 
ship  approaching  on  the  open  sea  under  full  sail. 
Still  another  dream  deserves  mention:  the  post- 
man brought  the  mail  and  gave  a  long  explanation 
of  why  he  had  to  wait  so  long.  .  .  .  One  can 
readily  understand  why  we  longer  for  sleep.     It 

ALONE  COULD  GIVE  US  ALL  THE  THINGS  WHICH  WE 

MOST  ARDENTLY  DESIRED."     [Capitals  mine.] 

Other  dreams  of  wish-fulfilment  appear  at  first 
glance  either  indifferent  or  absurd.  Interpreted 
according  to  the  technique  outlined  in  Chapter 
XVII,  however,  they  soon  yield  a  meaning  which  is 
rather  convincing. 

The  following  dream,  recorded  by  a  patient, 
would  not  lead  the  inexperienced  interpreter  to  sus- 
pect the  sinister  death  wish  which  it  is  meant  to 
express  in  an  indirect  way. 

"I  was  visiting  a  factory  and  saw  Charles  work- 
ing as  a  glassblower." 

Charles  was  the  first  name  of  a  wealthy  man 
who  seduced  a  girl  with  whom  the  dreamer  was 
in  love.  The  wealthy  man  is  reduced  to  the  con- 
dition of  a  working  man.  The  patient's  uncon- 
scious association  to  glass  blower  proved  to  be  con- 
sumption.    The   patient  had   once  read   statistics 

[63] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

showing  that  a  large  number  of  glassblowers  died 
from  that  disease.  A  very  neatly  concealed  death 
wish. 

In  other  cases  the  death  wish,  while  obvious  in 
the  manifest  dream  content,  appears  absurd  and 
may  cause  the  patient  some  anxiety.  One  of 
Ferenczi's  patients,  who  was  extremely  fond  of 
dogs,  dreamt  that  she  was  choking  a  little  white  dog 
to  death. 

Word  associations  brought  out  the  memory  of 
a  relative  with  an  unusually  pallid  face  whom  she 
had  recently  ordered  out  of  her  house,  saying 
later  that  she  would  not  have  such  a  snarling  dog 
about  her.  It  was  that  white-faced  woman,  not  a 
white  dog,  whose  neck  she  wished  to  wring. 

Here  is  another  example  in  which  the  wish  ful- 
filment is  cleverly  concealed. 

"I  am  standing  on  a  hill  with  Albert  and  some- 
body else.  Bombs  are  falling  about  us.  One  of 
them  strikes  his  car  which  is  destroyed."  ^ 

The  patient,  a  woman,  is  in  love  with  Albert  and 
enjoys  greatly  riding  with  him  in  his  car.  Why 
should  she  wish  to  see  it  wrecked? 

The  key  to  the  enigma  was  given  by  the  associa- 
tions to  the  "somebody  else."     The  somebody  else 

1  All  the  dreams  cited  in  this  book  are  reported  in  the  patient's 
own  words. 

[64] 


Wish  Fulfilment 


was  another  woman  whom  Albert  had  taken  to 
ride  on  several  occasions  and  of  whom  my  patient 
was  very  jealous.  By  destroying  the  car,  the  jeal- 
ous woman  was  putting  an  end  to  the  rides  which 
had  especially  aroused  her  jealousy. 

The  following  dream  seems  rather  unpleasant 
without  being  however  an  actual  nightmare. 

Dream:  I  heard  a  noise  downstairs  and  went 
to  investigate.  Upon  reaching  the  bottom  of  the 
stairs,  I  found  a  man  lying  on  the  floor  with  his 
coat  off  and  drunk.  Later  he  was  hiding  from 
me  and  running  about  the  house.  The  man  was 
captured  and  brought  back  by  another  man  who 
cross-examined  him.  The  other  man  made  ex- 
cuses for  the  thief  and  said  he  probably  intended 
to  steal  but  as  he  had  a  toothache  he  had  sought 
the  cellar  and  drunk  to  deaden  the  pain.  To  prove 
his  explanations  he  opened  the  thief's  mouth  and 
pointed  to  a  large  cavity  in  one  tooth. 

Interpretation:  The  patient  who  brought  me 
the  dream  was  a  young  woman  who,  at  the  time, 
was  worrying  lest  her  husband  should  discover  an 
indiscretion  she  had  committed  in  her  own  house. 
The  thief  in  the  dream  turned  out  to  be  her  lover 
and  the  man  who  captures  him,  her  husband. 
Everything  is  made  simple  and  pleasant  by  the  fact 
that  the  husband  takes  it  upon  himself  to  make  ex- 

[65] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

cuses  for  the  man  he  has  captured.  The  excuse 
of  the  cavity  was  an  allusion  to  alleged  visits  to  a 
dentist's  office  which  supplied  her  with  alibis  on 
various  occasions. 

We  spend  a  part  of  the  night,  if  not  the  entire 
night,  seeking  solutions  for  the  problems  of  the 
day.  Patients  who  have  been  trained  to  remem- 
ber and  record  their  dreams  accurately,  sometimes 
bring  a  series  of  visions,  apparently  unrelated,  but 
which  after  interpretation,  prove  to  be  successive 
presentations  of  one  and  the  same  problem  from 
different  angles. 


[661 


CHAPTER  IX:  NIGHTMARES 

The  Freudian  theory  of  wish-fulfilment  easily  ac- 
cepted by  the  layman  as  solving  the  problem  of 
pleasant  or  indifferent  dreams,  meets  with  a  most 
sceptical  reception  when  it  is  applied  to  unpleas- 
ant dreams,  to  nightmares,  which  are  characterized 
by  a  varying  degree  of  anxiety. 

What  I  said  in  a  previous  chapter  on  the  sub- 
ject of  symbols  explains  why  certain  wish-fulfil- 
ment dreams  are  perceived  and  remembered  as 
nightmares.  A  woman  may  dream  that  she  is  sur- 
rounded by  snakes,  bitten  by  a  dog,  pursued  by  a 
bull,  trampled  down  by  a  horse.  A  man  may 
dream  that  he  is  stabbed  in  the  back  or  that  he 
is  sinking  slowly  into  water.  In  the  first  case  we 
have  a  symbolic  expression  of  the  woman's  desire 
for  sexual  intercourse,  in  the  second  a  symbolic  ex- 
pression of  the  man's  desire  for  homosexual  grat- 
ification or  for  regression  to  the  fetal  stage  (assum- 
ing of  course  that  those  various  symbols  have  not 
a  personal  significance  for  the  subject). 

The  anxiety  connected  with  those  visions  is  due 

[67] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

to  the  subject's  inability  or  unwillingness  to  recog- 
nize as  his  the  unconscious  desires  expressed  by 
symbols. 

In  not  a  few  cases,  the  sleeper  creates  a  dream 
situation  which  is  distressing,  full  of  danger,  but 
which  leads  to  a  triumphal  climax  in  which  his  ego 
reaps  a  rich  reward  of  glory. 

Stekel  in  "The  Language  of  the  Dream,"  records 
a  fine  dream  of  his  in  which  his  egotism  is  vouch- 
safed all  forms  of  gratification. 

Dream:  "I  am  in  a  great  hall.  On  the  stage 
there  is  a  composite,  centaurlike  creature,  half 
horse  and  half  wolf  or  tiger.  I  am  standing  near 
the  door,  fearing  that  the  beast  might  get  out  of 
bounds.  In  fact  the  tiger  tears  himself  loose  from 
the  horse  and  leaps  toward  the  door.  I  slam  it 
shut  and  lock  it  up.  After  a  while,  I  re-enter  the 
hall.  I  behold  a  wild  panic.  Krafft-Ebing,  the 
lion  tamer,  is  rushing  here  and  there.  A  man  with 
two  children  is  shaking  with  fear.  Trumpet  calls 
are  heard  coming  from  the  tower." 

Interpretation:  "The  dream  was  connected 
with  a  heated  discussion  in  which  I  had  taken  part, 
about  Zola's  'The  Human  Beast.'  I  contended  that 
in  every  man  there  is  a  pathological  strain  and  that 
no  one  is  in  absolute  control  of  the  beast.  I  see 
myself  under  two  different  aspects.  I  am  the  wolf 
[68]  


Nightmares 

or  tiger  and  I  lock  the  door  in  order  that  the  wild 
cravings  may  not  get  loose.  How  great  I  am  in 
this  dream!  Krafft-Ebing,  the  famous  expert  in 
sexual  pathology,  runs  about  helpless,  while  I  hold 
the  beasts  in  my  power.  The  fear-stricken  fellow 
with  the  two  children  is  myself,  an  obviously  tragic 
figure,  symbolizing  another  side  of  my  nature. 
The  trumpet  calls  are  from  Beethoven's  Fidelio. 
My  marital  faithfulness  triumphs  over  my  wildest 
urges.  I  am  a  model  for  all  to  imitate  and  I 
sound  loud  warnings." 

In  a  dream  reported  by  a  patient  who  was  un- 
consciously trying  to  break  his  appointment  with 
me,  the  anxiety  is  purely  hypocritical,  for  each 
new  obstacle  placed  in  the  dreamer's  path  is  a  new 
excuse  for  not  reaching  my  office  on  time. 

"I  was  on  Riverside  Drive,  strolling  north.  Mr. 
Tridon  came  along  in  the  same  direction,  bare- 
headed and  riding  on  a  bicycle.  He  came  near 
running  into  a  boy,  also  on  a  bicycle,  but  swerved 
sharply  and  avoided  a  collision. 

"I  was  hurrying  to  keep  the  appointment  with 
Mr.  Tridon  which  I  had  for  5.30  P.  M.  (I  really  had 
an  appointment  for  11.30  in  the  morning)  but  felt 
that  I  could  not  be  there  on  time.  My  watch  had 
stopped  and  the  clocks  I  saw  in  stores  had  stopped 
likewise.     The  location  was  the  slope  of  Morning- 

[69] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

side  Heights  and  my  direction  still  seemed  to  be 
northerly. 

"Another  transition  and  I  was  climbing  a  hill 
near  what  looked  like  the  99th  Street  station  of  the 
3rd  Avenue  L.  Near  the  summit  the  going  became 
very  steep  and  I  was  unable  to  go  on,  although  I 
tried  to  scramble  up  on  my  hands  and  knees.  I 
turned  to  the  left,  however,  and  climbed  stairs 
leading  through  a  white  house,  which  I  under- 
stood to  be  a  school.  There  was  a  woman  there 
with  a  few  children.  I  then  issued  into  a  wide 
avenue  running  east  and  west  which  looked  like 
Flatbush  Avenue,  Brooklyn.  A  trolley  came  along 
but  as  I  ran  for  it,  it  seemed  as  though  I  had  lost 
my  coat.  I  turned  back  anxiously  to  find  it  but 
discovered  that  I  was  carrying  it  on  my  arm.  I 
woke  up  before  the  next  car  came  along." 

After  attempting  to  ridicule  me,  the  dreamer  re- 
hearsed all  the  excuses  he  might  offer  me  for  miss- 
ing an  appointment:  Mistake  about  the  hour, 
clocks  stopped,  going  to  the  wrong  direction  (north 
instead  of  south),  finally  landing  in  Brooklyn,  far 
from  my  office  and  missing  several  cars,  etc.  .  .  . 

A  young  woman  who  had  been  invited  several 

times  by  a  friend  to  come  and  visit  her  and  who 

had  exhausted  all  the  possible  excuses  for  refusing 

such  an  invitation  had  the  following  dream  after 

[70] 


Nightmares 

receiving  one  more  letter  renewing  the  invitation: 

"My  friend's  abode  was  a  new  apartment  and 
I  spent  a  night  there.  Upon  awaking  in  the  morn- 
ing I  discovered  something  crawling  on  my  bed 
which  looked  like  a  caterpillar.  I  was  disgusted 
and  frightened.  I  went  into  the  bathroom  and 
there  too  found  insects  of  the  same  species  but 
very  small  in  size.  They  reminded  me  of  spiders 
and  the  ceiling  and  the  walls  were  entirely  'deco- 
rated' with  them. 

"I  then  decided  to  tell  my  friend  to  call  this 
to  the  attention  of  the  landlady  and  as  I  entered 
my  friend's  room  I  found  her  and  the  landlady 
cleaning  my  friend's  bed. 

"I  told  the  landlady  how  unpleasant  it  is  to  have 
such  creatures  in  one's  apartment  and  she  said: 
'The  rooms  were  left  unpainted  for  some  time  and 
this  is  the  cause  of  it.'  " 

An  unpleasant  dream,  containing  a  little  anxiety 
and  some  disgust  and  yet,  a  solution  offered  for  the 
young  woman's  problem,  a  reason  for  not  accepting 
the  invitation.     The  place  is  not  clean. 

The  next  dream  is  also  an  effort  at  finding  a 
solution  for  a  distressing  problem: 

Dream:  "I  was  at  home;  some  one  looking  like 
a  nurse  said:  'Come  up  stairs.  You  are  going 
to   have   a   baby.'     I   was   neither   surprised   nor 

[711 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

worried.  The  nurse  added:  'When  you  have  had 
the  baby,  you  can  select  a  husband  for  yourself.' 
I  followed  her  and  lay  on  a  bed  waiting  for  pains. 
Feeling  nothing  I  grew  impatient  and  went  down- 
stairs. Suddenly  I  became  frightened  and  decided 
I  must  not  have  the  child.  I  started  to  think  how 
I  could  find  a  doctor  to  perform  an  abortion.  I 
awoke  suddenly  with  a  tremendous  sense  of  relief." 
Interpretation:  The  patient  is  a  southern 
girl  living  in  New  York.  Home  for  her  means  the 
small  town  where  her  family  resides.  She  has  had 
a  liaison  and  has  often  worried  about  possible 
consequences.  The  first  part  of  the  dream  is  a 
solution  offered  by  the  dream.  She  is  at  home, 
pregnant,  but  it  seems  natural  to  every  one  and 
the  nurse  (a  nurse  girl  of  her  childhood  days) 
is  not  only  taking  the  matter  as  natural  but  shows 
her  the  advantages  of  her  condition.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  girl  is  frigid  in  love  and  used  to  associ- 
ate pregnancy  with  orgasm.  The  pregnancy 
means  here  the  fulfilment  of  her  wish  for  an  or- 
gasm. Also  it  reveals  her  secret  desire  that  her 
lover  might  be  compelled  to  marry  her.  The  lack 
of  labor  pains  is  another  form  of  wish-fulfilment. 
The  end  of  the  dream  indicates  the  mental  pro- 
cesses of  the  patient,  and  her  struggle  against  a 
regression.  She  first  attempts  to  solve  the  problem 
[72] 


Nightmares 

by  running  back  to  "home  and  nurse"  but  insight 
enables  her  to  analyse  her  dream  and  return  to 
real  life. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  some  painful  dreams  are, 
without  any  symbolism  or  distortion  of  any  kind, 
dreams  of  obvious  wish-fulfilment. 

There  is  a  human  type  which  enjoys  pain,  be  it 
inflicted  by  others  or  self-torture,  and  to  which  fear 
and  anxiety  vouchsafe  a  good  deal  of  gratification. 

When  we  remember  the  workings  of  our  auto- 
nomic nerves  we  may  not  wonder  at  that  fact. 
Pain,  anxiety  or  fear  pour  into  our  blood  stream 
fuel  which  gives  us  for  a  few  minutes  or  a  few 
hours  a  feeling  of  energy  and  power  we  may  lack, 
and  secretions  which  cause  an  arterial  tension  trans- 
lated easily  into  "excitement,"  "exhilaration,"  etc. 

Children  of  the  masochistic  type  like  to  have 
some  one  tell  them  stories  of  the  most  nightmarish 
variety  which  fill  them  with  terror.  We  have  all 
met  the  child  who  at  some  time  or  other  makes 
the  strange  request:  "Scare  me." 

Anxiety  dreams  may  play  the  part  of  a  bracer 
and  tonic  in  subjects  of  that  type.  The  strange 
ritual  of  some  primitive  races,  ancient  and  modem, 
in  which  mourners  slash  themselves  or  pull  their 
hair  or  beards,  corresponds  closely  from  the  en- 
docrine point  of  view  to  the  craving  for  terrible 

[73] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

fairy  tales  or  the  frequency  of  certain  anxiety 
dreams.  The  secretions  brought  forth  by  that  self- 
inflicted  pain  may  combat  successfully  the  depres- 
sion due  to  the  loss  of  a  dearly  beloved  person. 


[74] 


CHAPTER  X:  TYPICAL  DREAMS  AND 
SLEEP  WALKING 

Thousands  of  explanations  have  been  offered 
for  typical  dreams  which  almost  every  one  has  had 
at  least  once,  such  as  dreams  of  falling  or  flying, 
but  none  of  them  should  be  accepted  as  covering 
all  cases. 

The  human  mind  is  compelled  to  do  its  thinking 
along  certain  lines  and  to  use  certain  categories 
like  time,  space,  etc. 

Naturally,  dreams,  which  are  in  no  way  differ- 
ent from  waking  thoughts,  must  move  along  cer- 
tain definite  grooves  too;  but  we  must  remember 
that  no  symbol  has  an  absolute  meaning.  Every 
symbol  is  likely  to  have  a  slightly  different  mean- 
ing for  every  individual. 

We  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  "Attitudes  in 
Dreams"  that  it  is  the  type  of  dreams  rather  than 
their  content  which  is  important  psychologically. 
And  it  is  the  type  of  man  who  dreams  which  is 
important  to  bear  in  mind  when  we  try  to  ferret  out 
the  meaning  of  a  typical  dream. 

Generally  speaking,  flying  dreams  seem  to  corre- 

[75] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

spond  to  one  of  the  most  universal  cravings  of 
mankind :  to  liberate  itself  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
law  of  gravity  and  enjoy  the  freedom  which  winged 
creatures  enjoy.  All  races  have  wished  to  fly  and 
that  desire,  never  gratified  in  waking  life  until 
recently,  was  bound  to  express  itself  in  the  dreams 
of  all  races  at  all  periods  of  history. 

Freud  has  suggested  that  such  dreams  repeat 
memories  of  childhood  games,  rocking,  see-sawing; 
Fedem  has  seen  in  them  a  symbol  of  sexual  excite- 
ment, both  of  which  explanations  sound  unconvinc- 
ing. 

There  may  be  a  symbolism  of  a  different  sort 
about  flying  dreams. 

If  for  some  reason  or  other,  our  sleep  becomes 
suddenly  much  deeper,  we  may  represent  our 
"flight"  from  reality  through  a  flight  through  the 
air.  We  soar  to  the  dream  level  which  we  feel 
to  be  higher  than  the  waking  level,  to  which  on 
awakening,  we  fall  painfully.  Variations  in  the 
sleep  depth  would  thus  account  for  the  frequent 
relation  of  sequence  which  is  observable  between 
flying  and  falling  dreams.  Flying  dreams  are 
never  connected  with  any  fear  of  anxiety,  while 
falling  dreams  are  almost  always  nightmares  of 
usually  short  duration. 

The  Freudians  see  in  many  falling  dreams  mem- 
[76] 


Typical  Dreams  and  Sleep  Walking 

ories  of  falls  in  childhood.  "Nearly  all  children," 
Freud  writes,  "have  fallen  occasionally  and  then 
been  picked  up  and  fondled;  if  they  fell  out  of 
bed  at  night,  they  were  picked  up  by  their  nurse 
and  taken  into  her  bed." 

This  explanation  fits  only  an  insignificant  num- 
ber of  cases. 

The  symbolism  of  the  falling  dream  is  found 
upon  analysis  to  be  much  richer. 

In  women,  dreams  of  falling  are  very  often  sym- 
bolical of  sexual  surrender.  Anxiety  or  pleasure 
connected  with  falling  dreams  reveals  the  fear  or 
pleasure  connected  with  such  a  thought  in  the 
dreamer's  mind.  Not  a  few  falling  dreams  trans- 
form themselves  after  a  slight  period  of  anxiety 
into  flying  dreams,  thus  indicating  that  the  feeling 
of  inferiority  connected  with  the  idea  of  surrender 
was  very  slight  and  easily  replaced  by  a  feeling 
of  power,  freedom  and  superiority  to  environment 
and  conventions. 

Dreams  of  falling  are  sometimes  "followed"  by 
a  terrified  awakening.  In  reality  it  is  the  awaken- 
ing due  to  some  physical  stimulus,  noise,  light, 
pain,  etc.,  which  is  followed  by  a  falling  dream. 
The  dream  in  that  case  is  symbolical  of  the  act  of 
awaking. 

The  anxiety  is  the  natural  displeasure  felt  by 

[77] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

the  dreamer  when  suddenly  compelled  to  pass  from 
dreamland  into  reality.  This  symbolism  is  rather 
apt,  for  the  awakening  lowers  us  from  the  free 
and  irresponsible  estate  of  the  dream  creature  to 
the  slavery  entailed  by  leading  a  real  life.  We 
fall  from  the  heights  of  our  dreams  to  the  depths 
of  reality. 

At  times,  the  dreamer  has  the  impression  of  being 
mangled  or  killed  as  a  result  of  that  fall. 

Death  is  again  a  powerful  symbol  indicative  of 
the  dreamer's  attitude.  He  feels  he  is  dying  when 
compelled  to  return  to  reality.  Such  a  type  is 
more  dangerously  attached  to  his  fiction  than  the 
one  who  only  resents  awaking  as  a  diminution  of 
his  ego  and  power. 

Dreams  of  falling  teeth  may  be  symbolical  of 
unconscious  onanistic  tendencies.  The  slang  of 
many  languages  has  established  a  connection  which 
cannot  be  casual  between  the  pulling  of  teeth  and 
sexual  self -gratification. 

In  dreams  in  which  teeth  grow  again  in  the 
dreamer's  mouth  we  may  see  a  return  to  childish 
attitudes  and  memories  of  the  years  when  the  first 
teeth  fell  out  and  were  replaced  by  stronger  ones. 
An  optimistic  attitude,  if  somewhat  regressive. 

When  a  certain  tooth  or  group  of  teeth  keeps  on 
recurring  in  dream  pictures,  an  X-ray  examination 
[78] 


Typical  Dreams  and  Sleep  Walking 

of  the  entire  denture  should  be  made.  I  have  ob- 
served several  cases  in  which  such  dreams  revealed 
the  presence  of  root  abscesses  causing  absolutely 
no  conscious  irritation  and  only  felt  unconsciously. 
Those  dreams  were  both  a  warning  and  a  wish- 
fulfilment  (painless  extraction). 

Dreams  of  nakedness,  like  dreams  of  flying,  seem 
to  express  one  of  mankind's  cravings,  freedom  from 
clothes.  In  the  Earthly  Paradise,  Adam  and  Eve 
were  naked  and  unashamed;  all  the  gods  and  god- 
desses of  the  ancient  religions  were  unclothed; 
even  in  our  days  academic  sculptors  represent 
modem  heroes  naked.  Painters  and  sculptors  of 
all  epochs  have  been  inclined  to  glorify  the  nude 
in  their  works. 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  construct  such  dreams 
as  a  return  to  infantilism,  as  a  regression,  as  the 
Freudians  generally  do. 

The  attitude  of  the  onlookers  in  those  dreams 
contains  a  very  obvious  form  of  wish-fulfilment: 
whether  we  sit  at  a  banquet  or  walk  across  a  draw- 
ing room  or  appear  on  a  street  naked  or  half  un- 
clothed, no  one  seems  to  notice  us.  We  generally 
try  to  hide  or  to  drape  ourselves  in  as  dignified 
a  manner  as  possible  in  whatever  scanty  garments 
we  retain,  but  the  anxiety  is  all  on  our  side. 

Such  dreams  cannot  be  dreams  of  exhibitionism 

[79] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

for  they  are  never  accompanied  by  the  wish  that 
people  should  see  us,  nor  do  we  ever  derive  any 
pleasure  from  our  exposure.  I  would  be  inclined 
to  consider  them  in  almost  every  case  as  symbolic 
dreams  of  attitudes.  We  are  labouring  under  the 
burden  of  some  secret  which  we  are  afraid  of  re- 
vealing. In  spite  of  our  anxiety,  we  are  comforted 
by  the  fact  that  our  secret  (our  total  or  partial 
nakedness)  escapes  the  beholders.  Our  danger 
and  our  escape  are  simply  visualized  and  symbol- 
ized. 

The  symbolism  of  our  exposure  is  quite  obvious. 
The  upper  part  of  our  body  is  usually  covered  up 
and  it  is  the  "lower"  part  of  it  which  is  exposed, 
and  which  we  awkwardly  try  to  wrap  up  in  our 
shirt  tails  or  to  conceal  under  a  table  cloth  or 
behind  furniture  or  bushes.  We  are  concealing 
something  shameful,  "low."  Everybody  knows 
the  symbolism  of  high  and  low,  right  and  left,  which 
is  expressed  by  the  language  of  all  races. 

One  form  of  anxiety  dream  in  which  we  grope 
our  way  through  endless  narrow  passages,  room 
after  room,  up  and  down  flights  of  stairs,  has  been 
considered  by  some  analysts  as  a  memoiy  of  the 
first  event  of  our  life,  when  we  were  forced  vio- 
lently, painfully,  through  a  narrow  passage  and 
finally  reached  the  light  of  day.  When  the  detail 
[80] 


Typical  Dreams  and  Sleep  Walking 


of  those  dreams  is  closely  analysed  it  will  prove 
much  more  valuable  and  important  than  a  mere 
regression  to  the  infantile. 

They  will  generally  turn  out  to  be  the  sort  of 
dreams  that  coincide  with  the  solution  of  a  crisis 
and  indicate  that  an  adaptation  to  life  has  been 
reached,  that  the  subject  has  been  "reborn." 

Sleep  walking  is  one  variety  of  typical  dream 
characterized  by  a  greater  motor  activity  than  the 
usual  dream  in  which  we  either  lie  still  or  only 
perform  incomplete  motions.  Sleep  walkers,  like 
ordinary  dreamers,  performed  in  their  somnambu- 
listic states  actions  which  they  have  refrained  from 
performing  in  their  waking  states.  While  the  sense 
of  direction  and  of  orientation  seems  unimpaired 
in  sleep  walkers,  their  perception  of  reality  is  very 
rudimentary. 

Two  cases  reported  by  the  Encyclopedic  Fran- 
gaise  and  by  Krafft-Ebing,  respectively,  illustrate 
that  point. 

A  young  man  used  to  get  up  at  night,  go  to  his 
study  and  write. 

Observers  would  now  and  then  substitute  a  sheet 
of  blank  paper  for  the  sheet  which  he  had  covered 
with  writing.  When  he  had  finished,  he  would 
read  over  his  manuscript  aloud  and  repeat  cor- 
rectly, while  holding  the  blank  sheet  before  his 

[81] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

eyes,  the  words  written  on  the  sheet  which  had  been 
taken  from  him. 

One  night  the  prior  of  a  monastery  was  seated 
at  his  desk.  A  monk  entered,  a  knife  in  his  hand. 
He  took  no  notice  of  the  prior  but  went  to  the  bed 
and  plunged  his  knife  into  it  several  times;  after 
which  he  returned  to  his  cell.  The  next  morning 
the  monk  told  the  prior  of  a  terrible  dream  he 
had  had.  The  prior  had  killed  the  monk's  mother 
and  the  monk  had  avenged  her  by  stabbing  the 
prior  to  death.  Thereupon  he  had  awakened, 
horrified,  and  thanking  God  that  the  whole  affair 
had  only  been  a  dream. 

In  sleep  walking  dreams  there  is  an  accuracy, 
a  singleness  of  purpose,  a  concentration  of  attention 
which  has  always  struck  all  observers. 

The  sleeper  often  wakes  up  when  called  by 
name,  but  he  generally  obeys  without  waking,  all 
commands  of  a  sensible  character,  such  as  to  go 
back  to  bed. 

The  sleeper  often  finds  his  way  and  locates  the 
objects  he  may  need  for  the  purposes  of  his  dream 
with  his  eyes  closed,  but  noises  and  collisions  with 
objects  often  fail  to  bring  him  back  to  waking 
consciousness. 

Sadger  has  attempted  to  point  a  connection  be- 

[82] 


Typical  Dreams  and  Sleep  Walking 

tween  moonlight  and  sleep  walking,  which  he  calls 
at  times  "moon  walking." 

The  conclusions  which  he  reaches  at  the  end  of 
his  book  on  the  subject  are  as  follows: 

"Sleep  walking,  under  or  without  the  influence 
of  the  moon,  represents  a  motor  outbreak  of  the 
unconscious  and  serves,  like  the  dream,  the  ful- 
filment of  secret,  forbidden  wishes,  first  of  the 
present,  behind  which,  however,  infantile  wishes 
regularly  hide.  Both  prove  themselves  in  all  the 
cases  analysed  more  or  less  completely  as  of  a 
sexual  erotic  nature. 

"Also  those  wishes  which  present  themselves 
without  disguise,  are  mostly  of  the  same  nature. 
The  leading  wish  may  be  claimed  to  be  that  the 
sleepwalker,  male  or  female,  would  climb  into  bed 
with  the  loved  object  as  in  childhood.  The  love 
object  need  not  belong  necessarily  to  the  present; 
it  can  much  more  likely  be  one  of  earliest  child- 
hood. 

"Not  infrequently  the  sleep  walker  identifies 
himself  with  the  beloved  person,  sometimes  even 
puts  on  his  clothes,  linen  or  outer  garments,  or 
imitates  his  manner. 

"Sleep  walking  can  also  have  an  infantile  pro- 
totype, when  the  child  pretends  to  be  asleep,  that 
it  may  be  able  without  fear  or  punishment  to  ex- 

[83] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

perience  all  sorts  of  forbidden  things,  because  it 
cannot  be  held  accountable  for  what  it  does  'un- 
consciously in  its  sleep.'  The  same  cause  works 
also  psychically,  when  sleep  walking  occurs  mostly 
in  the  deepest  sleep,  even  if  organic  causes  are 
likewise  responsible  for  it. 

"The  motor  outbreak  during  sleep,  which  drives 
one  from  rest  in  bed  and  results  in  sleep  walking 
and  wandering  under  the  light  of  the  moon,  may 
be  referred  to  this,  that  all  sleep  walkers  exhibit 
a  heightened  muscular  irritability  and  muscle 
erotic,  the  endogenous  excitement  of  which  can 
compensate  for  the  giving  up  of  the  rest  in  bed. 
In  accordance  with  this,  these  phenomena  are  espe- 
cially frequent  in  the  offspring  of  alcoholics,  epil- 
eptics, sadists  and  hysterics,  with  preponderating 
involvement  of  the  motor  apparatus. 

"Sleep  walking  and  moon  walking  are  in  them- 
selves as  little  symptoms  of  hysteria  as  of  epilepsy; 
yet  they  are  found  frequently  in  conjunction  with 
the  former. 

"The  moon's  light  is  reminiscent  of  the  light  in 
the  hand  of  a  beloved  parent.  Fixed  gazing  upon 
the  planet  also  has  probably  an  erotic  colouring. 

"It  seems  possible  that  sleep  walking  and  moon 
walking  may  be  permanently  cured  through  the 
psychoanalytic  method." 
[84] 


CHAPTER  XI:  PROPHETIC  DREAMS 

Every  one  has  heard  relations  of  prophetic 
dreams  which  seem  to  imply  a  sense  of  unconscious 
sight  going  far  beyond  the  limits  of  our  conscious 
visual  perceptions.  It  may  be  that,  even  as  cer- 
tain vibrations  can  be  sent  and  received  without 
any  transmitting  medium  except  the  atmosphere, 
by  wireless,  certain  visual  information  can  be  re- 
ceived, at  times,  under  certain  conditions,  without 
any  perception  of  such  phenomena  reaching  the 
consciousness. 

At  the  same  time,  this  is  a  field  on  which  one 
must  tread  most  carefully,  for  telepathy  has  never 
been  studied  very  scientifically  and  the  telepathic 
dreams  which  have  been  related  to  me  or  which  I 
have  read  about  had  been  recorded  rather  care- 
lessly and  the  circumstances  surrounding  them  had 
not  been  noted  with  the  regard  for  accuracy  which 
must  characterize  scientific  research. 

A  few  times  in  my  life,  I  have  had  the  infinite 
surprise  when  lifting  the  telephone  receiver,  of 
hearing  the  voice  of  the  very  person  I  was  going  to 
call  up  and  who  had  called  me  up  at  the  same 

[85] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

minute.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  endeavoured 
with  the  help  of  very  intimate  friends  to  effect 
synchronic  transmission  of  thought  and  have  failed 
dismally  on  every  occasion. 

While  I  have  never  had  prophetic  dreams  I  have 
recorded  one  dream  of  mine  which  might  be  char- 
acterized as  a  "second  sight"  dream. 

One  day  I  mislaid  some  documents  which  once 
belonged  to  my  father. 

That  night  my  father  appeared  to  me  and  pointed 
to  a  desk  drawer  where  the  papers  would  be  found. 
The  next  morning  I  looked  in  that  drawer  and 
found  the  documents. 

I  certainly  placed  the  documents  myself  in  that 
drawer  the  day  before  and  forgot  the  fact.  But 
the  unconscious  memory  of  that  action  was  retained 
and  came  up  at  night  while  my  mind  was  at  work 
solving  the  problem  of  the  lost  documents. 

If  that  explanation  should  meet  with  scepticism 
I  would  remind  the  reader  that  the  wealth  of  in- 
formation with  which  our  unconscious  is  filled  per- 
mits of  unconscious  mental  operations  of  which  in 
our  conscious  states  we  would  be  incapable. 
Janet's  subject,  Lucie,  who  was  lacking  in  mathe- 
matical ability,  could,  in  her  unconscious  states, 
perform  calculations  of  an  extreme  complication. 
He  would  give  her  under  hypnosis  the  following 
[86] 


Prophetic  Dreams 


order:  "When  the  figures  which  I  am  going  to 
read  off  to  you,  leave  six  when  subtracted  one  from 
the  other,  make  a  gesture  of  the  hand."  Then  he 
would  wake  her  up,  and  ask  several  people  to  talk 
to  her  and  to  make  her  talk.  Standing  at  a  cer- 
tain distance  from  her,  he  would  then  read  rapidly 
in  a  low  voice  a  list  of  figures,  but  when  the  ap- 
propriate figures  were  read,  Lucie  never  failed  to 
make  the  gesture  agreed  upon. 

We  notice  thousands  of  things  unconsciously, 
which  means  simply  that  every  sensorial  impression 
causes  a  modification  of  our  autonomic  system 
and  probably  of  our  sensory-motor  system  which 
is  never  completely  effaced. 

During  our  waking  hours  only  those  memory 
impressions  which  are  needed  rise  to  consciousness. 
The  many  observations  we  have  made,  consciously 
or  otherwise,  enable  us  to  calculate  the  distance 
between  us  and  an  automobile,  the  speed  of  that 
automobile,  the  width  of  the  street,  the  dryness  or 
the  slippery  conditions  of  the  pavement,  and  to 
select  the  time  for  crossing  as  well  as  the  speed 
at  which  we  shall  cross. 

In  our  sleep,  when  we  are  revolving  the  day's 
problems  and  searching  for  solutions,  many  other 
facts,  stored  up  in  our  nervous  systems,  rise  to 
consciousness  and  are  used  in  solving  the  problem. 

[87] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

In  the  personal  case  I  cited,  my  unconscious 
applied  its  searchlight  to  recent  events;  in  other 
cases  reported  in  the  literature  of  the  subject  the 
unconscious  is  shown  bringing  back  events  which 
seemed  to  have  been  entirely  forgotten. 

Our  organism  never  forgets. 

Forgotten  incidents  which  suddenly  rise  to 
consciousness  in  dreams  are  sometimes  responsible 
for  visions  which  on  superficial  observation  appear 
truly  prophetic.  Maury  cites  the  following  in  his 
book  on  "Sleep  and  Dreams": 

"Mr.  F.  decided  once  to  visit  the  house  where 
he  had  been  brought  up  in  Montbrison  and  which 
he  had  not  seen  in  twenty-five  years.  The  night 
before  he  started  on  his  trip,  he  dreamt  that  he 
was  in  Montbrison  and  that  he  met  a  man  who  told 
him  he  was  a  friend  of  his  father.  Several  days 
later,  while  in  Montbrison  he  actually  met  the  man 
he  had  seen  in  his  dream  and  who  turned  out  to 
be  some  one  he  really  knew  in  his  childhood,  but 
had  forgotten  in  the  intervening  years.  The  real 
person  was  much  older  than  the  one  in  the  dream, 
which  is  quite  natural." 

One  finds  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  many  remarkable  examples  of 
dreams  which,  to  the  uninitiated,  appear  truly 
miraculous.  Remembering,  however,  the  wonders 
[88] 


Prophetic  Dreams 


accomplished  by  Lucie  under  the  influence  of  a 
hypnotic  command,  we  may  realize  that  the  book- 
keepers who  suddenly  find  in  a  dream  the  mistakes 
which  have  prevented  them  from  balancing  their 
books,  or  the  various  people  who  locate  missing 
objects,  are  simply  continuing  in  their  sleep  the 
day's  work,  drawing  no  longer  upon  their  limited 
store  of  conscious  memories  and  impressions,  but 
upon  all  the  wealth  of  information  which  is  con- 
tained in  their  unconscious. 

Even  the  famous  dream  of  Professor  Hilprecht 
loses  much  of  its  glamour  when  viewed  from  this 
angle.  Hilprecht  had  spent  quite  some  time  try- 
ing to  decipher  two  small  fragments  of  agate  which 
were  supposed  to  belong  to  the  finger  rings  of  some 
Babylonian  god.  He  had  given  up  the  task  and 
classified  the  fragments  as  undecipherable  in  a 
book  on  the  subject.  One  night  he  had  put  his 
"o.  k."  on  the  final  proofs  of  that  book,  feeling, 
however,  rather  dissatisfied  at  his  inability  to  ac- 
count for  the  inscriptions  found  on  those  ancient 
stones.  He  went  to  bed,  weary  and  exhausted  and 
had  a  remarkable  dream:  A  tall,  thin  priest  of 
Nippur  appeared  to  him,  led  him  to  the  treasure 
chamber  of  the  temple  of  Bel  and  told  him  that  the 
two  fragments  in  question  should  be  put  together, 
as  they  were,  not  finger  rings,  but  earrings  made 

[89] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

for  a  god  by  cutting  a  votive  cylinder  into  three 
parts.  The  next  morning  he  did  as  the  dream 
priest  had  told  him  to  do,  and  was  able  to  read  the 
inscription  without  any  difficulty. 

I  have  received  many  letters  from  persons  re- 
lating that  they  had  dreamt  of  the  San  Francisco 
earthquake,  of  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  of  the 
death  of  some  friend  or  relative  the  very  night 
preceding  the  event. 

I  show  in  another  chapter  how  treacherous  and 
unreliable  our  memory  of  dreams  can  be  at  times. 

Happenings  following  quickly  the  awakening 
are  likely  to  become  "parasites"  on  the  night's 
dreams  and  to  appear  as  a  component  part  of  them. 

Time  and  over  again,  the  newspaper  one  reads 
at  breakfast  adds  details  to  the  night's  remembered 
dreams.  Reading  about  some  accident  in  the 
early  morning  may  cause  us  to  believe  that  we 
dreamt  of  the  accident  in  the  course  of  the  night. 

When  the  German  submarines  began  to  sink  pas- 
senger ships,  thousands  of  dreamers  who  either 
wished  unconsciously  for  such  sinkings  or  feared 
them  (which  is  generally  the  same  thing)  and  many 
also  who  craved  the  excitement  such  catastrophes 
would  bring  them,  must  have  had  dreams  in  which 
large  ships  were  sunk.  And  those  thousands  must 
have  impressed  themselves  and  their  family  circle 
[90] 


Prophetic  Dreams 


by  announcing,  when  the  morning  newspaper  came 
out,  that  they  had  seen  the  tragedy  enacted  in  a 
dream. 

Here  again  we  are  groping  our  way  over  un- 
charted fields  and  not  until  thousands  of  scientific 
observations  made  with  the  care  characteristic  of 
the  chemical  laboratory  have  been  made,  all  ex- 
planations will  only  be  tentative  and  all  positive 
statements  misleading. 

Those  mentioning  such  dreams  to  me  have  at 
times  been  rather  annoyed  when  I  made  them  con- 
fess the  wish  lurking  in  them. 

One  man  told  me  that  he  had  three  brothers  at 
the  front  during  the  war  and  that  in  a  dream  he 
saw  one  of  them  killed  by  the  Germans.  Soon 
afterward,  news  of  his  death  reached  the  family. 

I  asked  him  point  blank  why  he  wanted  to  get 
rid  of  that  brother.  He  avoided  giving  me  a  direct 
answer  but  admitted  that  if  one  of  the  three  was  to 
die,  the  one  whose  death  he  saw  in  his  dream  would 
be  least  missed  by  his  family  as  he  had  always 
made  trouble  and  was  the  "black  sheep."  .  .  . 

Even  in  such  cases  the  wish,  fulfilment  theory 
holds  good. 


[91] 


CHAPTER  XII:  ATTITUDES  REFLECTED  IN 
DREAMS 

Dreams  reveal  to  us  what  our  unconscious  crav- 
ings are  and  this  is  of  course  valuable  information. 
But  cravings  are  only  symptoms  of  something  more 
important  and  less  easily  dealt  with:  the  subject's 
attitude  to  life. 

The  neurosis  is  merely  a  wrong  attitude  to  life 
and  its  problems.  A  fear  of  darkness,  an  incestu- 
ous desire,  an  abnormal  craving  for  a  certain  food 
are  no  more  important  in  themselves  than  a  small 
sore  appearing  on  one's  lip.  But  as  the  sore  may 
mean  that  the  organism  is  infected  with  the  spiro- 
chaeta  of  syphilis,  the  "psychic''  phenomena  I  men- 
tioned may  mean  that  the  organism  has  adopted 
toward  reality  a  negative  attitude  leading  to  death 
instead  of  life. 

Owing  to  its  visualizing  powers,  the  dream  makes 
attitudes  extremely  obvious  at  the  very  first  glance. 

We  are  as  we  see  ourselves  in  our  dreams. 

Positive,  energetic  dreams,  full  of  action,  indi- 
cate strength  either  in  resolve  or  in  resistance. 
[92] 


Attitudes  Reflected  in  Dreams 


Vague  dreams,  full  of  moods  rather  than  of 
action,  indicate  stagnation,  aimlessness. 

Dreams  of  adulthood,  dealing  with  the  present 
or  the  future,  indicate  progression.  Dreams  of 
childhood  or  dealing  mainly  with  the  past,  indi- 
cate attempts  at  a  regression. 

In  his  latest  book,  "Introduction  to  Psychoan- 
alysis," Freud  states  that  "the  unconscious  in  our 
psychic  life  is  the  infantile." 

This  is  one  of  the  great  Freudian  exaggerations. 
Such  a  statement  is  true  of  the  neurotic  and  ex- 
plains why  he  is  a  neurotic.  In  fact  the  more  in- 
fantile the  unconscious  appears  to  be,  the  more 
severe  the  neurosis  generally  is,  until  in  certain 
forms  of  malignant  regression,  the  patient  acts 
like  a  helpless  newly  born  infant.  The  predomin- 
ance of  infantile  material  in  dreams  indicates  a 
fixation  on  infantile  gratifications  which  makes  the 
subject  especially  ill  adapted  to  adult  life.  But 
in  the  normal  individual  the  amount  of  infantile 
material  is  very  small  indeed. 

We  start  gathering  unconscious  material  at  the 
very  minutes  of  our  birth,  if  not  before  birth,  but 
we  keep  on  accumulating  experiences,  most  of  them 
unconscious  and  only  rising  to  consciousness  when 
needed,  and  conscious  experiences  which  become 
unconscious  when  not  needed. 

[93] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

It  is  the  proportion  of  material  from  the  various 
periods  of  our  life  which  enables  us  to  gauge  the 
level  a  human  being  has  reached  through  his  in- 
telligent, positive  acceptance  of  present  day  re- 
ality. I  say  acceptance  of  reality  racier  than 
adaptation  to  reality,  for  adaptation  implies  a  cer- 
tain suppression,  and  suppression  may  mean  neuro- 
sis. 

It  is  the  human  being  who  satisfies  all  his  in- 
fantile cravings  within  a  sphere  of  activity  bene- 
ficial to  himself  and  the  world,  who  remains 
healthy.  He  who  tries  to  satisfy  them  through  in- 
fantile or  childish  ways  merges  into  a  neurosis. 

We  have  seen  that  the  dreams  of  children  and 
of  simple,  normal  people  are  obvious  and  devoid 
of  any  symbolic  disfigurement.  Children  dream 
of  the  food  or  the  pleasures  they  had  to  forego  in 
the  previous  waking  state.  Nordenskjold  and  his 
sailors,  icebound  in  the  Antarctic,  dreamt  of  fine 
meals,  of  tobacco,  of  ships  sailing  the  open  sea, 
of  mail  from  home,  in  other  words  of  the  things 
of  which  they  had  been  deprived  for  months. 

The  use  of  symbols  in  dreams,  on  the  other  hand, 
indicates  a  lack  of  freedom  of  expression  due  to 
some  fear  or  repression.  A  repressed  vision  ap- 
pears on  the  screen  of  our  mind  in  symbolized 
form. 
[94] 


Attitudes  Reflected  in  Dreams 


A  highly  symbolical  dream  is  almost  always  a 
pathological  dream.  It  means  that  we  do  not  dare, 
even  in  our  dreams,  to  visualize  directly  the  thing 
we  are  thinking  of. 

The  phenomenon  which  Freud  has  designated  as 
"displacement"  also  indicates  an  attempt  at  re- 
pressing certain  important  facts  by  harping  on 
other  facts  of  lesser  importance. 

A  child  surprised  in  a  part  of  the  house  where 
his  presence  is  suspicious  is  not  likely  to  reveal 
abruptly  his  plans.  He  will  in  all  likelihood  tell 
some  story  from  which  the  real  reason  for  his 
presence  is  carefully  excluded.  A  young  pie  fiend 
found  in  the  pantry  would  never  mention  the  word 
pie  but  make  great  ado  over  the  "fact"  that  his 
ball  has  rolled  under  the  cupboard. 

And  likewise  it  is  very  often  the  part  of  a  dream 
which  a  patient  has  not  told  which  holds  the 
key  to  the  enigma  of  the  patient's  mental  dis- 
turbance. 

One  of  my  hypnagogic  visions  which  I  have  al- 
ready mentioned,  simple  as  it  is,  reveals  my  entire 
attitude,  not  only  to  sleep,  but  to  life  in  general. 

I  do  not  feel  overwhelmed  by  sleep.  I  give  my- 
self up  to  sleep  as  voluntarily  as  I  wade  into  the 
sea  or  plunge  into  a  swimming  pool.  Sleep  will 
refresh  me  as  a  swim  would.     When  the  proper 

[95] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

depth  is  reached  I  swim  out,  conscious  of  my  ability 
and  experiencing  no  fear. 

I  use  sleep  as  a  means  to  exercise  my  mental 
activities  as  I  enjoy  the  muscular  exertion  neces- 
sary for  swimming. 

Finally  there  is  no  one  in  the  picture  but  my- 
self.    I  am  the  central  figure  of  the  dream. 

To  go  into  more  details,  I  may  confide  to  the 
reader  that  I  have  never  enjoyed  any  form  of  sport, 
indoor  or  outdoors  in  which  I  do  not  play  an  impor- 
tant, if  not  the  leading  part,  or  which  prevents  me 
from  indulging  my  own  whims.  Witnessing  some 
one  else's  athletic  performances  bores  me  to  ex- 
tinction and  games  such  as  cards,  checkers  or  golf 
which  are  surrounded  with  iron  clad  regulations 
appear  to  me  not  as  a  relaxation  but  as  a  useless 
form  of  hard  work. 

Readers  may  think  that  these  self -revelations  are 
prompted  by  egotism,  but  an  analyst  should  analyse 
himself  as  ruthlessly  as  he  analyses  others  and 
egotism  happens  to  be  the  dominant  feature  of  my 
attitude  to  life. 

The  following  dream  draws  a  remarkable  picture 
of  uncertainty,  indecision  and  gloom: 

Dream.  "I  am  standing  at  the  foot  of  marble 
stairs.  I  expect  some  danger  from  the  left  where  a 
person  clothed  in  authority,  with  tyrannical  appear- 
[96] 


Attitudes  Reflected  in  Dreams 


ance,  is  approaching.  I  ask  a  female  figure  stand- 
ing at  the  top  of  the  steps,  and  who  seems  to  be 
some  acquaintance,  relative,  mother  or  sister,  for 
help.  I  try  to  run  up  the  steps  but  cannot.  The 
figure  extends  me  a  helping  hand  but  that  hand  is 
so  weak,  lifeless,  that  I  feel  helpless.  I  wake  up 
in  deep  anxiety." 

Attitude.  We  have  in  this  case  a  "flight  to  the 
mother"  coupled  with  fear  of  the  powerful  father. 
The  patient  had  always  suff'ered  from  some  fear, 
fear  of  examinations  as  a  school  child,  fear  of 
competition  in  all  life  matters,  fear  of  marriage, 
fear  of  decisions.  He  lived  with  his  mother  and 
sister  and  had  an  affair  with  a  woman  considerably 
older  than  himself  whom  he  called  "mother"  and 
who  called  him  her  "boy." 

We  shall  now  see  a  dreamer  wrestling  with  a 
sentimental  problem,  seeking  a  solution  for  it  and 
refusing  to  accept  the  solution  suggested  by  an 
outsider. 

Dream.  "I  was  in  a  car  with  Albert,  sitting  in 
my  usual  seat  but  the  steering  gear  had  been  moved 
so  that  I  could  steer  from  my  seat.  I  was  very 
inexperienced  and  felt  anxiety.  I  was  going 
down  a  steep  city  street  and  at  the  bottom,  saw  a 
house  before  which  I  wished  to  park;  there  were 
red  lanterns  and  signs,  however,  which  prevented 

[97] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

me  from  stopping  there.  I  went  on  and  Albert 
disappeared,  then  I  was  in  the  open  country  climb- 
ing a  hill  and  a  man  (A.T.)  stood  there  and  I  asked 
him  which  way  to  go.  The  machinery  bothered 
me,  I  didn't  know  what  button  to  push  but  trusted 
my  intuition  and  went  all  right.  Finally  I  reached 
a  desert  stretch  where  there  was  nothing  and  in 
great  anxiety  awoke." 

Attitude.  The  subject  in  love  with  a  married 
man,  had  long  hoped  that  he  would  secure  a  divorce 
and  marry  her.  She  often  went  motoring  with  him. 
Their  affair  was  not  satisfactory,  however,  and  she 
had  often  considered  the  possibility  of  a  separa- 
tion. 

The  situation  is  handled  in  the  dream  as  follows. 
She  has  had  her  way  and  is  running  the  car  from 
her  usual  seat  (he  has  come  to  her  point  of  view) 
but  she  has  misgivings  about  the  experiment  (un- 
consciously, she  is  not  very  keen  any  more  to  marry 
him) ;  she  tries  to  park  in  front  of  a  house  (their 
future  home) ;  red  lanterns  (danger  signs,  ob- 
stacles, law,  custom)  prevent  her  from  doing  so. 
She  then  starts  out  without  him  and  asks  her  ana- 
lyst for  advice.  He  encourages  her  to  go  on  her 
way  but  she  reaches  a  deserted  place  and  feels  so 
forlorn,  so  hungry  for  himaan  company  that  she 
escapes  from  the  nightmare  through  awaking. 
[98] 


Attitudes  Reflected  in  Dreams 


Even  when  no  change  is  observable  in  a  patient's 
condition  in  the  course  of  an  analysis,  constant 
attention  to  his  dreams  will  enable  the  analyst  to 
notice  unconscious  changes  which  very  soon  after- 
ward translate  themselves  into  a  conscious  modifi- 
cation of  attitude. 

The  following  dreams  illustrate  that  point: 

At  the  beginning  of  the  analysis  a  patient,  follow- 
ing in  his  dreams  as  well  as  in  his  neurosis,  the  line 
of  least  effort,  dreamt  he  had  solved  a  mechanical 
problem  by  means  of  a  very  simple  apparatus  con- 
sisting in  a  rocking  chair,  two  thumb  tacks  and  an 
old  rubber  coat.  Later  when  he  resumed  closer 
contact  with  life,  the  machinery  of  his  dreams  be- 
came real  machinery  and  he  continued  in  his  sleep- 
ing thoughts  the  calculations  which  had  occupied 
him  during  the  day  and  which  to  him  were  a  con- 
stant source  of  pleasure. 

A  patient  whose  ambition  was  to  become  a  singer 
but  whose  husband  was  decidedly  hostile  to  her 
plans,  first  brought  me  the  following  dream  in  which 
she  frankly  relied  on  me  for  advice: 

"I  am  on  the  stage,  singing.  I  forget  my  part. 
A  foreign  looking  conductor  prompts  me.  In  the 
wings,  a  man  is  looking  at  me,  weeping.  He  falls 
in  a  faint.  I  rush  to  him.  He  looks  like  my 
husband.     A  foreign  looking  doctor  picks  him  up 

[99] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

and  says  to  me:  'He  will  sleep  now,  after  which 
he  will  feel  better.'  I  go  back  to  the  stage  and 
sing  beautifully." 

Later,  having  acquired  more  self-confidence  she 
visualized  the  situation  as  follows: 

"I  see  a  man  leading  a  Jersey  cow  on  a  rope. 
The  cow  is  trying  to  get  under  the  fence  but  can- 
not. Then  the  cow  is  changed  into  a  yellow  bird 
which  flies  away,  perches  on  top  of  a  barn  and 
sings  joyfully." 

In  the  first  dream,  I  am,  of  course  the  conductor 
and  the  doctor.  In  the  second  dream,  the  cow  is 
an  allusion  to  the  patient's  tendency  to  gain  weight. 
The  song-bird  is  a  very  obvious  symbol. 

A  series  of  dreams  reported  by  a  stammering 
patient  not  only  presented  the  Freudian  feature 
of  wish-fulfilment  but  indicated  clearly  the  patient's 
changing  attitude  and  his  growing  self-confidence, 
which  finally  culminated  in  his  complete  cure. 

One  of  the  first  dreams  he  brought  me  at  the 
beginning  of  the  treatment  read  as  follows: 

"A  congressman  called  Max  Sternberg,  who 
looks  like  me,  is  on  the  platform,  making  a  speech. 
A  gang  of  little  Irish  boys  in  the  rear  starts  a  dis- 
turbance. The  audience,  unable  to  hear  the 
speaker,  leaves  the  hall." 

On  numberless  occasions,  small  boys  prevented 
[100] 


Attitudes  Reflected  in  Dreams 


him  in  his  dreams  from  accomplishing  his  object, 
and  in  particular,  disturbed  him  when  he  was 
speaking.  Later  the  small  boys  became  less  and 
less  aggressive.  On  one  occasion  he  lead  a  group 
of  them  through  a  museum  and  they  listened  to  his 
explanations  without  interrupting  him. 

One  night  he  had  the  following  dream. 

"I  am  near  Grand  Central  and  thousands  of 
children  are  lined  on  both  sides  of  the  avenue  to 
welcome  a  school  principal  who  is  landing  from 
the  train.  He  arrives  and  they  all  cheer  wildly 
and  I  have  a  feeling  that  I  am  that  school  prin- 
cipal." 

Little  boys  never  disturbed  the  dreamer  after 
that.  He  had  conquered  his  regressive  tendencies 
and  his  speech  was  improving. 

His  self-confidence  grew  to  such  a  point  that 
he  had  the  following  dream: 

"I  was  in  a  room  with  John  and  Lionel  Barry- 
more  and  I  rehearsed  them  for  a  Shakespearian 
play.  Lionel  forgot  his  part  and  stopped.  I 
prompted  him  and  declaimed  a  few  lines  myself 
very  eloquently.  This  was  accompanied  by  the 
thought:     Very  egotistical-good." 


[101] 


CHAPTER  XIII:  RECURRENT  DREAMS 

Whenever  one  and  the  same  motive,  with  per- 
haps slight  variations,  recurs  frequently  in  dreams 
we  may  assume  that  it  is  the  leading  motive  of 
the  dreamer's  waking  life.  Whenever  a  person 
plays  a  dominant  part  in  our  dreaming,  we  can  rest 
assured  that  that  person  dominates  and  directs  our 
behaviour  directly  or  indirectly. 

A  man  of  forty-five,  suffering  from  dizziness, 
was  sent  to  me  by  his  family  physician  after  num- 
berless tests  had  failed  to  attribute  his  illness  to  a 
"physical"  cause.  The  patient  had  been  troubled 
for  two  years  with  vertigo,  which  he  insisted  on 
attributing  to  arteriosclerosis  (against  the  advice 
of  several  physicians).  His  legs  had  become  very 
weak  and  unsteady.  He  had  developed  a  deep 
sense  of  worthlessness  and  was  haunted  by  suicidal 
ideas. 

My  query  as  to  his  most  frequent  dream  elicited 
the  answer: 

"I  dream  very  frequently  of  my  father." 

His  father  had  died  two  years  before,  from 
arteriosclerosis,  and  his  main  complaint  had  been 
[102] 


Recurrent  Dreams 


dizziness,  weakness  of  the  legs  and  depression.  To 
any  one  but  the  patient,  the  psychological  connec- 
tion between  his  illness  and  his  father's  illness 
would  have  been  obvious.  He,  too,  saw  some  con- 
nection between  the  two,  only  he  placed  upon  that 
fact  a  more  sinister  construction.  The  heredity 
bogey  was  terrifying  him.  His  father  had  be- 
queathed his  illness  to  him,  and  he  was  to  die  as 
his  father  had  died. 

It  came  out  in  the  course  of  the  analysis  that 
he  had  been  from  infancy  his  father's  constant 
companion,  working  for  him  till  he  was  over  forty 
years  of  age.  Although  he  had  always  been  fond 
of  women,  he  had  never  thought  of  marrying  until 
his  father  died.  After  reciting  the  usual  argu- 
ments of  the  average  bachelor  directed  against 
matrimony,  he  confessed  that  he  had  never  had  the 
courage  to  bring  to  his  home  any  young  woman 
he  liked  and  who  might  have  become  his  wife. 
Fear  of  his  father's  sarcastic  remarks  set  to  nought 
any  plans  he  might  have  made  for  a  home  of  his 
own. 

After  his  father's  death,  he  went  half-heartedly 
into  various  business  ventures  of  which  his  father 
would  have  disapproved  and  he  naturally  lost  his 
investment.  Every  time  he  met  with  a  reverse,  he 
would    be    tortured    by    remorse.     "This    is    my 

[103] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

father's  money  which  I  have  been  squandering." 
"My  father  would  be  furious  if  he  knew  what  I 
have  done." 

He  would  then  dream  that  his  father  stalked  past 
him,  cold,  indifferent,  stem,  and  he  "knew"  his 
father  had  "come  back"  to  show  him  his  resent- 
ment. 

The  superficial  symptoms  of  the  patient's  trouble 
were  easily  removed  when  he  acquired  enough 
insight  to  realize  that  he  had  been  imitating  all  of 
his  father's  attitudes  and  repressing  his  own  ego. 

Physical  exercise  soon  restored  to  his  legs  the 
steadiness  which  they  had  lost  while  the  patient, 
imitating  his  father's  helplessness,  would  sit  in  his 
father's  chair  day  after  day,  never  taking  a  walk. 
A  more  critical  attitude  of  mind  toward  the  father 
whom  he  worshipped,  removed  gradually  the  sense 
of  worthlessness  which  had  almost  lead  him  to 
suicide. 

Suicide  to  him  was  the  road  that  led  back  to  his 
father,  upon  whom  he  wished  to  shift  his  responsi- 
bilities, and  for  whom  he  wished  to  work  (as  a 
younger  man),  etc. 

The  case  was  much  more  complicated  but  the 
few  details  of  it  which  I  have  presented  are  suf- 
ficient to  show  the  close  connection  which  existed 
[104] 


Recurrent  Dreams 


between  the  patient's  most  frequent  dream  and  his 
imaginary  neurotic  goal. 

A  homosexual  patient  always  dreamt  of  her  step- 
mother whom  her  father  married  when  she,  the 
patient,  was  only  twelve  years  of  age.  That  mar- 
riage was  the  culmination  of  a  complicated  family 
tragedy,  double  divorce,  unsavoury  publicity,  bit- 
terness and  hostility,  puritanical  gossip  about  sex, 
passion,  etc.,  which  made  on  the  child  an  indelible 
impression. 

She  felt  obscurely  then  that  relations  between 
sexes  were  something  unutterably  filthy  and  while 
she  liked  a  few  boys  in  her  flapper  days,  she  could 
not  master  a  feeling  of  disgust  whenever  their  atti- 
tude reminded  her  of  the  "nasty"  things  which 
had  wrecked  her  family. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  pretty  young  woman  whom 
her  father  introduced  into  his  home,  personified  in 
her  thoughts  sexual  attraction  in  its  most  irresisti- 
ble form,  a  symbol  of  sin  and  bliss.  To  this  day 
she  has  love  affair  after  love  affair  with  women, 
every  affair  followed  by  a  "nervous  breakdown" 
in  which  she  repents  her  immorality  and  experi- 
ences terrible  remorse.  At  every  stay  in  a  sanitar- 
ium, however,  dreams  of  her  stepmother,  repre- 
senting veiled  and  symbolized  homosexual  situa- 

[105] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

tions,  obsess  her  night  after  night.  In  one  of  those 
dreams  she  took  the  place  of  her  father  and  mar- 
ried the  young  woman,  after  which  the  hostility 
of  the  family,  manifesting  itself  in  various  forms, 
transformed  the  pleasant  fancy  into  a  painful  anx- 
iety dream. 

Another  patient,  tyrannized  over  by  an  aunt  who 
had  brought  her  up,  would,  whenever  an  emergency 
arose  and  she  had  to  take  a  decision,  dream  of  the 
severe,  forbidding  aunt  and  feel  so  depressed  the 
next  day  that  she  could  not  accomplish  anything 
and  thus  postponed  the  solution  of  her  difficulties. 

In  certain  cases,  a  recurring  dream  may  bear  a 
strange  likeness  to  a  splitting  of  the  personality 
such  as  we  observed  in  cases  of  dual  personalities. 

The  famous  Rosegger  dream,  analysed  by  Freud 
and  Maeder,  should  be  reanalysed  in  the  light  of 
the  statements  made  in  the  previous  chapters. 
Rosegger  went  through  a  hard  mental  struggle 
from  which  he  emerged  victorious,  but  the  recur- 
ring dream  he  relates  in  his  book  "Waldheimat" 
tells  us  much  about  the  trials  of  a  little  tailor  who 
managed  to  make  a  place  for  himself  in  the  artis- 
tic world  but  for  a  long  while  felt  out  of  place  in 
his  new  environment. 

"I  usually  enjoy  a  sound  sleep,"  Rosegger  writes, 
"but  many  a  night  I  have  no  rest.  I  lead  side  by 
[106] 


Recurrent  Dreams 


side  with  my  life  as  student  and  litterateur,  the 
shadow  life  of  a  tailor's  apprentice.  This  I  have 
dragged  with  me  through  long  years,  like  a  ghost, 
without  being  able  to  get  rid  of  it.  .  .  .  When- 
ever I  dreamed,  I  was  the  tailor's  apprentice,  .  .  . 
working  without  compensation  in  my  master's 
workshop.  ...  I  felt  I  did  not  belong  there  any 
more  .  .  .  and  regretted  the  loss  of  time  in  which 
I  could  have  employed  myself  more  usefully.  .  .  . 
How  happy  I  was  to  wake  up  after  such  tedious 
hours!  I  resolved  that  if  this  insistent  dream 
should  come  again,  I  would  throw  it  off  and  shout: 
'This  is  only  a  make  believe.  I  am  in  bed  and 
wish  to  sleep.'  Yet  the  next  time  I  was  again  in 
the  tailor's  workshop.  One  night,  at  last,  the  mas- 
ter said  to  me:  'You  have  no  talent  for  tailoring. 
You  can  go,  you  are  dismissed.'  I  was  so  fright- 
ened by  this  that  I  awoke." 

Freud  compares  this  dream  with  a  similar  dream 
which  pestered  him  for  years  and  in  which  he  saw 
himself  as  a  young  physician,  working  in  a  labora- 
tory, making  analyses  and  unable  as  yet  to  earn 
a  regular  living.     This  is  his  interpretation  of  it: 

"I  had  as  yet  no  standing  and  did  not  know  how 
to  make  ends  meet;  but  just  then  it  was  clear  to 
me  that  I  might  have  the  choice  of  several  women 
whom  I  could  have  married.     I  was  young  again 

[107] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

in  the  dream  and  she  was  young  too,  the  wife  who 
had  shared  with  me  all  those  years  of  hardship. 

"This  betrayed  the  unconscious  dream  agent  as 
being  one  of  the  insistent  gnawing  wishes  of  the 
aging  man.  The  fight  between  vanity  and  self- 
criticism,  waged  in  other  psychic  layers,  had  de- 
cided the  dream  content,  but  only  the  deeper  rooted 
wish  for  youth  had  made  it  possible  as  a  dream. 
Often,  awake,  we  say  to  ourselves:  Everything  is 
all  right  as  it  is  today  and  those  were  hard  times, 
but  it  was  fine  at  that  time.     You  are  still  young." 

Maeder,  of  Zurich,  refuses  to  accept  such  a 
simple  explanation  and  offers  a  more  complicated 
one,  burdened,  like  many  psychological  interpre- 
tations of  the  Swiss  school,  with  ethical  considera- 
tions. 

"By  his  own  efforts,"  Maeder  writes,  "Rosegger 
had  worked  himself  up  to  a  high  position  in  life. 
This  has  made  him  proud  and  vain,  two  faults 
which  easily  disturb  mankind,  for  they  cause  a 
man  to  suffer  in  the  presence  of  superiors  and  place 
him  in  a  parvenu  position  among  the  lowly.  .  .  . 
Deep  down,  there  takes  place,  in  the  sensitive  poet, 
a  gradual  elaboration,  a  development  of  the  moral 
personality.  .  .  .  The  long  series  of  tormenting 
dreams  shows  us  the  development  of  the  psychic 
process  which  ends  in  a  deep  but  effective  humilia- 
[108] 


Recurrent  Dreams 


tion  of  the  dreamer.  .  .  .  His  being  sent  away, 
dismissed,  symbolizes  in  my  opinion,  the  overcom- 
ing of  the  pride  and  vanity  of  the  upstart." 

I  agree  with  Freud  on  the  wish  for  youth  ex- 
pressed by  Rosegger's  dream  and  fulfilled  by  way 
of  a  regression.  But  neither  Freud,  bent  on  in- 
troducing a  sexual  element  into  his  interpretation, 
nor  Maeder,  overf ond  of  moralizing,  seem  to  have 
realized  the  tremendous  meaning  of  such  a  series 
of  dreams,  culminating  as  they  did  in  a  changed 
attitude  to  life. 

I  have  shown  in  another  book,  "Psychoanalysis 
and  Behavior,"  that  in  cases  of  dual  personalities, 
the  second  personality  is  always  one  that  leads  a 
simpler,  less  arduous  life,  fraught  with  lesser  re- 
sponsibilities, than  the  normal  life  led  by  the  first 
personality.  The  Rev.  Ansel  Bourne,  being  tired 
and  needing  rest,  was  transformed  for  several 
weeks  into  A.  Brown,  a  fruit  dealer  in  a  small 
town  far  away  from  his  home.  Miss  Beauchamp, 
prim,  overconsciencious,  repressed,  became  the  ir- 
responsible Sallie,  devoid  of  manners  or  taste.  The 
Rev.  Thomas  Carson  Hanna,  overworked  and  a 
spiritual  disciplinarian,  woke  up  from  a  fit  of  un- 
consciousness a  newborn  baby,  helpless  and  in- 
organized. 

Rosegger,  rising  from  manual  to  intellectual  la- 

[109] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 


hour,  compelled  to  adapt  himself  to  the  manner- 
isms of  a  different  world,  and  to  adopt  a  new  set 
of  social  habits  and  customs  for  which  his  bring- 
ing up  in  a  proletarian  home  had  not  prepared 
him,  compelled  also  to  ransack  his  brain  constantly 
for  new  ideas  to  express  or  for  new  forms  in  which 
to  clothe  old  ideas,  may  have  at  times  regretted 
unconsciously  the  simpler  life  of  a  tailor,  less  rich 
in  egotistical  satisfactions  but  more  comfortable 
intellectually  and  requiring  infinitely  less  ingen- 
uity. 

And  some  of  the  remarks  which  he  appends  to 
his  dream,  confirm  my  suspicions. 

What  does  he  say  of  his  awakening?  "I  felt 
as  if  I  had  just  newly  recovered  this  idylically 
sweet  life  of  mine,  peaceful,  poetical,  spiritualized, 
in  which  so  often  I  had  realized  human  happi- 
ness to  the  uttermost." 

Undoubtedly  he  had  for  a  long  while  failed  to 
enjoy  it  and  unconsciously  planned  to  escape  from 
it  through  a  regression  to  his  former  estate. 

Several  lines  further  down  the  page  we  find  this 
statement  which  is,  I  think,  absolutely  conclusive 
proof  of  what  his  mental  attitude  had  been  and 
of  the  crisis  he  had  lived  through. 

"I  no  longer  dream  of  my  tailoring  days  which 
[110] 


Recurrent  Dreams 


in  their  way  were  so  jolly  in  their  simplicity  and 
without  demands^ 

Rosegger's  dream  is  one  of  those  morbid  mani- 
festations which  enable  us  to  follow  a  neurotic 
struggle  going  on  within  the  organism,  a  struggle 
for  adaptation  to  life,  a  struggle  of  which  the  sub- 
ject is  consciously  ignorant,  because  he  has  burnt 
his  bridges  and  has  repressed  the  most  fleeting 
thought  of  a  possible  change. 

Rosegger  must  have  smarted  under  the  demands 
of  his  new  life,  but  it  was  out  of  the  question  for 
him  to  do  anything  else.  The  conflict,  however, 
played  itself  off"  in  his  dreams,  offering  a  solution 
of  a  regressive  type.  When,  years  later,  the 
tailor's  adaptation  to  the  life  of  a  writer  was  com- 
pleted, his  master  dismissed  him.  The  dream 
solution  was  no  longer  needed. 

Recurring  dreams  often  give  us  valuable  indi- 
cations of  physical  trouble  which  should  be  in- 
vestigated and  remedied  at  once.  Even  in  ancient 
times,  the  relation  between  recurring  dreams  of 
physical  disability  and  some  physical  disability 
setting  in  at  a  later  date  had  been  noticed.  In 
those  days,  however,  the  interpretation  of  such 
dreams  was  that  the  vision  was  a  warning  sent  by 
the  gods,  or  that  the  vision  was  responsible  for 

[111] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

the  subsequent  trouble.  We  read  for  instance  of 
a  man  who  dreamt  that  he  had  a  stone  leg.  A 
few  days  later  paralysis  set  in. 

In  discussing  dental  dreams  I  have  pointed  out 
the  importance  of  having  the  denture  examined  for 
possible  pus  pockets. 

Dreams  of  animals  gnawing  at  some  organ  may 
indicate  a  cancer  developing  in  that  region. 
Dreams  of  exhaustion  from  climbing  hills  often 
denote  heart  disease. 

H.  Addington  Bruce  had  for  several  months  had 
the  same  dream:  a  cat  was  clawing  at  his  throat. 
Examination  of  the  throat  revealed  a  small  growth 
which  required  immediate  surgical  intervention. 
The  cat  never  came  back. 


[112] 


CHAPTER  XIV:  DAY  DREAMS 

We  do  not  always  need  to  sleep  in  order  to  es- 
cape normally  from  reality.  Some  of  us  manage 
to  do  it  with  their  eyes  open. 

Day  dreams  are  not  essentially  different  from 
night  dreams  and  would  not  be  mentioned  sepa- 
rately but  for  the  fact  that  they  at  times  verge 
on  a  neurosis  and  that  in  certain  cases  they  are  not 
easily  distinguished  from  delusions  and  hallucina- 
tions. 

Whatever  was  said  of  night  dreams  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  holds  true  of  day  dreams.  There 
are  pleasant  day  dreams,  unpleasant  day  dreams 
and  even  day  "nightmares"  or  anxiety  day  dreams. 

Like  the  sleep  walker,  the  day  dreamer  manages 
at  times  to  take  just  enough  notice  of  reality  to 
direct  himself  through  his  house  or  along  the 
streets,  while  his  mind  is  elaborating  stories  of 
varying  complication. 

A  day  dreamer  who  consulted  me  during  the 
war  would  imagine  himself,  while  walking  along 
the  streets,  enlisting,  taking  a  tearful  farewell  from 
his  relatives  and  friends  and  accomplishing  deeds 

[113] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 


of  valour  which  made  him  famous ;  after  which  he 
would  be  so  affected  by  his  greatness  that  tears 
would  roll  down  his  cheeks.  Or  the  dream  would 
end  tragically  and  he  would  die  and  then  again  a 
cascade  of  tears  would  be  let  loose  at  the  thought  of 
all  the  grief  his  demise  would  cause.  The  result 
was  that  day  after  day  he  would  suddenly  "wake 
up"  in  some  public  place,  his  face  wet  with  tears, 
annoyed  and  embarrassed  by  the  attention  which 
his  appearance  would  attract. 

Those  day  dreams  constituted  in  spite  of  their 
sad  cast  a  fulfilment  of  his  egotistical  cravings. 
Even  death  was  not  too  high  a  price  to  pay  for  the 
importance  he  acquired  in  his  dream,  a  psycho- 
logical fancy  which  is  often  found  at  the  bottom 
of  some  sensational  forms  of  suicide. 

The  anxiety  day  dream  is  the  form  of  compen- 
sation sought  by  many  neurotics,  weak  in  body 
and  frequently  taken  advantage  of  by  more  vigor- 
ous and  ruthless  persons. 

It  also  plays  at  times  the  same  part  as  maso- 
chistic nightmares,  filling  as  it  does,  the  body  with 
glycogen  and  a  sense  of  power. 

I  have  heard  patients  suffering  from  a  sense  of 
real  or  imaginary  inferiority  tell  me  of  their  ob- 
sessive anger  finding  relief  in  scenes  which  they 
made,  while  walking  along  the  streets  or  when  sleep- 
[114] 


Day  Dreams 

less  of  nights,  to  some  absent  person  whom  they 
held  responsible  for  their  troubles. 

They  would  then  rehearse  some  annoying  or 
humiliating  incident  provoked  by  the  offensive 
person  and  let  loose  a  torrent  of  abuse  leading  un- 
avoidably to  a  fight  in  which  they  would  beat, 
scratch  or  murder  their  enemy. 

The  sound  of  their  own  voice  or  the  remarks  of 
passers  by  would  generally  wake  them  up  at  the 
climax;  their  hearts  then  would  beat  wildly,  they 
would  be  out  of  breath,  if  not  bathed  in  perspira- 
tion, but  they  would  experience  withal  a  certain 
amount  of  satisfaction  from  the  victory  they  had 
won  and  they  would  feel  full  of  what  a  patient 
of  mine  termed  "almost  murderous  energy." 

This  form  of  "abreaction,"  when  it  does  not  as- 
sume the  form  of  a  constant  indulgence  taking  the 
place  of  positive  action,  is  rather  desirable.  The 
psychoanalytic  treatment  consists,  in  part  at  least, 
in  the  production  of  day  dreams  based  on  memories 
which  free  in  the  patient  a  certain  amount  of  re- 
pressed energy.  Thus  a  great  deal  of  unrelated 
and  unconscious  material  is  made  conscious  and 
related.  Day  dreams,  without  any  definite  direc- 
tion and  unchecked,  are  likely,  however,  to  be  very 
dangerous  and  to  exert  a  paralysing  influence  on  the 
dreamer. 

[115] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

The  concentration  and  meditation  recommended 
by  some  Hindoo  philosophers  can  accomplish  valu- 
able results  if  the  subject  has  a  clear,  analytical 
mind  and  knows  how  to  correlate  the  scraps  of 
thoughts  which  are  thus  allowed  to  rise  to  con- 
sciousness. 

For  childish  people,  which  are  easily  caught  in 
the  meshes  of  their  fancies  and  let  their  imagina- 
tion run  away  with  them,  that  indulgence  is  deadly 
and  it  has  led  millions  of  Orientals  into  a  nirvana- 
like idleness  and  weakness,  destructive  of  energy 
and  life,  a  negative  escape  from  reality. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why,  in  many  forms 
of  neurosis,  a  rest  cure  is  the  most  dangerous 
form  of  treatment.  The  neurotic's  attention  is 
generally  directed  away  from  reality.  His  en- 
ergy is  too  often  deflected  toward  fictitious  goals 
located  outside  of  the  real  world.  The  neurotic 
has  to  be  brought  back  into  contact  with  life  and 
human  beings;  he  has  to  be  trained  to  accept  them 
as  they  are  and  to  enjoy  them  for  what  they  are, 
instead  of  imagining  what  they  might  be.  The  idle- 
ness and  seclusion  of  the  rest  cure  may  negative  all 
efforts  in  that  direction. 

The  rest  cure  from  which  day  dreams  cannot  be 
excluded,  is  simply  an  abnormal  flight  from  real- 
[116] 


Day  Dreams 

ity  sanctioned  and  abetted  by  a  physician  ignor- 
ant of  psychology. 

The  day  dreams  which  produce  happiness,  which 
promote  creation,  scientific  or  artistic,  and  which 
lead  the  individual  into  the  stream  of  life,  are 
sound  and  healthy  dreams.  Those  which  only 
lead  to  more  dreaming  and  away  from  life,  are 
neurotic  phenomena,  devoid  of  any  redeeming 
grace. 


[117] 


CHAPTER  XV:  NEUROSIS  AND  DREAMS 

Not  infrequently  neuroses  and  psychoses  are 
ushered  in  by  a  dream  and  their  termination  is  an- 
nounced by  a  dream. 

This  should  not  be  understood  to  mean  that  the 
dream  either  "causes"  the  neurosis  or  "cures"  it. 
That  mistake  has  often  been  made  by  psychologists 
of  the  old  school.  Taine,  among  others,  cites  the 
case  of  a  policeman  who  once  attended  a  capital 
execution. 

This  spectacle  made  such  an  impression  on  him 
that  he  often  dreamt  of  his  own  execution  and 
finally  committed  suicide. 

It  would  be  absurd  to  believe  that  the  sight  of 
the  execution  "put  the  idea  of  suicide  into  his 
head."  He  undoubtedly  had  been  consciously  or 
unconsciously  revolving  death  thoughts  in  his 
mind. 

The  sight  of  the  execution  made  those  ideas  more 
concrete  and  more  obsessive.  The  recurrence  of 
a  death  dream  simply  showed  that  the  obsession 
was  gradually  overpowering  his  personality  and 
seeking  realization.  The  dream  work,  endeavour- 
[118] 


Neurosis  and  Dreams 


ing  to  solve  the  problem  of  how  to  end  his  life, 
offered  an  easy  solution:  he  did  not  have  to  com- 
mit suicide;  he  was  being  put  to  death.  Finally 
the  death  wishes  overthrew  his  personality  and  he 
killed  himself. 

An  epileptic  was  tortured  every  night  by  a  dream 
in  which  a  group  of  boys  playing  Wild  West  (he 
personifying  the  Indian)  were  pursuing  him,  throw- 
ing sticks  and  stones  at  him  and  finally  cornering 
him.  At  the  very  minute  where  they  were  laying 
hands  on  him,  he  would  experience  a  "dying"  feel- 
ing and  wake  up  in  great  discomfort.  One  night  he 
turned  round  to  face  the  gang  which  dwindled  down 
to  one  small  urchin  whom  he  spanked.  That  night 
he  slept  soundly  and  the  next  day  his  fears  of 
having  a  new  fit  disappeared.  Neither  that  dream 
nor  his  fits  have  returned.  It  was  not  the  dream 
that  gave  him  fits,  nor  was  it  the  last  dream  which 
cured  him.  The  obsessive  dreams  were  wish-fulfil- 
ment dreams,  showing  him  how  to  dodge  life's  du- 
ties through  his  sickness  which  was  a  convenient, 
though  painful,  unconscious  excuse  and  how  to 
solve  his  life  problems  by  getting  out  of  reality. 

The  last  dream  revealed  a  change  in  his  mental 
attitude.  He  was  not  to  seek  any  longer  a  neuro- 
tic escape  from  reality  but  face  reality  and  fight 
his  own  battles. 

[119] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

A  patient  suflfering  from  delusions  had  the  fol- 
lowing dream: 

"A  woman  appeared  to  me  and  told  me  that  it 
was  all  a  dream  and  that  all  my  troubles  would 
soon  end." 

Associations  to  that  dream  showed  that  the  wom- 
an who  appeared  to  my  patient  was  a  midwife  who 
had  helped  her  in  a  confinement  some  thirty  years 
before  (rebirth  symbolism).  At  that  time  she  al- 
most died  from  puerperal  fever  and  was  also 
"saved"  by  a  dream  in  which  her  grandparents  ap- 
peared to  her  and  told  her  that  she  would  recover. 

Her  dreams,  in  which  she  placed  in  the  mouth 
of  other  people  the  expression  of  her  own  wish 
for  health,  corresponded  well  in  their  mechanism 
with  her  delusions  in  which  she  heard  people  berat- 
ing her  for  her  imaginary  sins. 

At  the  time  of  the  dreams,  her  delusions  had 
lost  their  terrifying  character  and  were  only  a  mild 
annoyance  to  her.  She  had  acquired  enough  in- 
sight to  doubt  their  reality  and  to  refer  them  to 
her  unconscious  thoughts. 

The  woman  who  imagines  that  in  every  voice  she 
hears  she  can  distinguish  the  voice  of  the  man  she 
unconsciously  loves  builds  up  a  "story"  like  the 
dreamer  who,  perceiving  coldness  in  her  feet  at 
night,  saw  herself  falling  into  a  lake. 
[120] 


Neurosis  and  Dreams 


The  technique  is  exactly  the  same  in  both  cases. 

Actual  sensations  are  transformed  into  delusions 
closely  associated  with  the  dreamer's  or  the  neu- 
rotic's complexes. 

People  subject  to  hallucinations  project  outside 
of  their  body  symbolic  figures  representing  wishes 
they  have  endeavoured  to  repress  and  which  they 
refuse  to  recognize  as  a  part  of  their  personality. 

They  hear  voices  which  say  certain  things  they 
are  trying  not  to  think  of,  for  they  consider  such 
thoughts  as  obscene,  criminal  or  otherwise  unjusti- 
fiable. 

Dreamers  likewise  represent  their  disabilities  as 
something  entirely  separate  from  their  bodies  and 
their  personality. 

The  stammering  patient  dreaming  that  he  was 
delivering  a  very  eloquent  speech  but  was  inter- 
rupted by  howling  hoodlums,  repressed  out  of  con- 
sciousness the  idea  of  his  speech  disturbance  and 
gratified  his  ego  by  saying:  "But  for  those  hood- 
lums I  could  speak  very  well." 

Trumbull  Ladd  suffering  from  inflammation  of 
the  eyelids  dreamt  that  he  was  trying  to  decipher  a 
book  in  microscopic  type:  An  attempt  at  shifting 
upon  the  book  the  responsibility  for  his  difficulties 
in  reading.  The  dream  said:  "There  is  nothing 
wrong  with  your  eyes,  but  the  type  is  too  small." 

[121] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

A  young  woman  struggling  with  an  unjustifiable 
attachment  for  a  married  man  told  me  the  follow- 
ing dream: 

"I  was  surrounded  by  little  devils  carrying  pitch- 
forks. I  was  afraid  of  them  at  first,  but  I  finally 
grabbed  them  all  in  a  bunch  and  dropped  them  into 
the  fireplace.  A  pit  opened  under  them  and  closed 
again  and  I  felt  free." 

Her  psychology  was  the  same  psychology  which 
in  the  Middle  Ages  caused  religious  people  to  in- 
vent the  devil.  Her  desires  which  she  refused  to 
recognize  as  hers  were  little  devils  endeavouring 
to  tempt  her.  We  deal  more  easily  with  a  stranger 
than  with  ourselves  and  "the  devil  tempted  me" 
sounds  more  forgivable  than  "I  did  what  I  had  al- 
ways wanted  to  do." 

What  makes  it  difficult  for  neurotics  at  times  to 
tell  the  difference  between  their  dreams  and  reality 
is  that  the  emotions  felt  in  dreams  are  accompanied 
by  the  same  inner  secretions  as  when  felt  in  the 
waking  life.  A  fear  dream  releases  adrenin  and 
a  vivid  sexual  dream  is  followed  by  a  pollution. 
The  bodily  sensations  following  certain  dreams  are 
evidential  facts  which  some  neurotics  do  not  know 
how  to  controvert. 

The  hallucinations  of  delirium  tremens  patients 
which  are  generally  accompanied  by  anxiety,  illus- 
[122] 


Neurosis  and  Dreams 


trate  the  fact  that  we  can  be  terrified  and  tortured 
by  a  dream  which  is  a  symbolized  fulfilment  of 
our  conscious  or  unconscious  wishes. 

It  is  admitted  by  all  but  the  very  ignorant  that 
immoderate  drinking  is  not  induced  by  a  taste  for 
drink  but  by  a  desire  to  escape  reality,  in  the  ma- 
jority of  cases,  to  drown  the  consciousness  of  finan- 
cial or  sexual  difficulties. 

The  most  common  hallucinations  of  drunkards 
are  those  of  snakes  and  lice.  Snakes  are  almost 
without  exception  symbolical  of  the  male  sex.  To 
the  majority  of  neurotics,  lice  are  symbolical  of 
money  and  American  slang  recognizes  that  associa- 
tion in  the  expression  lousy  with  money. 

The  "DT"  patient  has  his  wishes  fulfilled.  He 
is  covered  with  vermin  and  snakes  crawl  about  his 
bed.  He  has  all  the  symbolical  wealth  and  the 
symbolical  potency  or  homosexual  love  he  could 
wish  for.  But  curiously  enough  he  does  not  un- 
derstand those  symbols  and  is  terrified  by  the 
manifest  content  of  his  morbid  dream. 

The  story  of  Nebuchadnezzar  in  the  book  of 
Daniel  is  a  fine  illustration  of  the  relation  between 
dreams  and  insanity. 

The  king  began  to  lose  his  sleep  which  was 
disturbed  by  nightmares.  In  the  morning,  how- 
ever, the  memory  of  those  nightmares  seemed  to  be 

[123] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

entirely  gone.  Daniel  contrived  to  reconstruct  a 
forgotten  anxiety  dream  in  which  the  king  saw 
a  gigantic  figure  with  head  of  gold,  breast  and 
arms  of  silver,  belly  and  thighs  of  brass,  legs  of 
iron  and  feet  of  iron  and  clay  and  which  toppled 
down  when  struck  by  a  stone. 

Here  we  have  a  morbid  attitude  to  reality,  the 
king  visualizing  his  position  (which  unconsciously 
appeared  to  him  precarious),  through  that  unstable 
figure,  and  also  expressing  a  neurotic  wish  to  be 
delivered  from  his  anxiety  through  the  final  catas- 
trophe. 

Later  the  king  had  another  dream  visualizing  his 
fears  and  death  wishes  through  a  different  image: 
A  mighty  tree  grew  till  its  head  reached  the  heavens. 
Then  an  angel  cried:  "Hew  down  the  tree,  leave 
the  stump  and  roots  in  the  earth,  in  the  tender  grass 
of  the  field;  let  it  be  wet  with  the  dew  and  let  his 
portion  be  with  the  beasts." 

Fear  of  defeat  and  a  neurotic  desire  to  escape 
reality  via  a  regression  to  the  animal  level  are 
clearly  indicated  in  this  dream  and  in  Daniel's  in- 
terpretation of  it. 

Very  soon  after,  auditory  hallucinations  began 
to  appear.     "A  voice  fell  from  heaven,"  speaking 
out  the  unconscious  wishes  which  the  king  craved 
to  gratify. 
[124] 


Neurosis  and  Dreams 


In  a  siege  of  dementia  praecox,  Nebuchadnezzar 
ate  grass  like  oxen  and  his  body  was  wet  with  the 
dew  from  heaven;  his  hair  grew  like  eagle's  feath- 
ers and  his  nails  like  birds'  claws. 

After  a  period  during  which  he,  like  all  cases 
of  changed  personality,  led  an  easier,  simpler,  more 
primitive  life,  without  any  responsibilities,  Ne- 
buchadnezzar recovered  and  related  thus  his  re- 
turn to  reality: 

"My  reason  returned  unto  me;  for  the  glory  of 
my  kingdom,  mine  honour  and  brightness  returned 
unto  me;  and  my  counsellors  and  lords  sought  unto 
me;  I  was  established  in  my  kingdom  and  excellent 
majesty  was  added  unto  me." 

In  the  meantime  he  had  become  reconciled  with 
reality  and  had  given  up  his  paranoid  attempts  at 
being  the  mightiest  factor  in  the  world. 

By  accepting  as  a  possibility  the  existence  of  a 
mightier  power,  he  protected  himself  against  the 
ignominy  of  a  possible  defeat.  Against  an  omni- 
potent God,  even  he  could  not  prevail. 

Freud  writes:  "The  overestimation  of  one's 
mental  capacity,  which  appears  absurd  to  sober 
judgment,  is  found  alike  in  insanity  and  in  dreams, 
and  the  rapid  course  of  ideas  in  the  dream  corre- 
sponds to  the  flight  of  ideas  in  the  psychosis.  Both 
are  devoid  of  any  measure  of  time. 

[125] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

"The  dissociation  of  personality  in  the  dream, 
which,  for  instance,  distributes  one's  own  knowl- 
edge between  two  persons,  one  of  whom,  the  strange 
one,  corrects  in  the  dream  one's  own  ego,  fully 
corresponds  to  the  well-known  splitting  of  the  per- 
sonality in  hallucinatory  paranoia;  the  dreamer, 
too,  hears  his  own  thoughts  expressed  by  strange 
voices. 

"Even  the  constant  delusions  find  their  analogy  in 
the  stereotyped  recurring  pathological  dreams. 

"After  recovering  from  a  delirium,  patients  not 
infrequently  declare  that  the  disease  appeared  to 
them  like  an  uncomfortable  dream ;  indeed,  they  in- 
form us  that  occasionally,  even  during  the  course 
of  their  sickness,  they  have  felt  that  they  were  only 
dreaming,  just  as  it  frequently  happens  in  the  sleep- 
ing dreams." 


[126] 


CHAPTER  XVI:  SLEEPLESSNESS 

I  have  given  in  the  previous  chapters  many  rea- 
sons why  human  beings  are  compelled  to  seek  at 
regular  intervals  an  escape  from  reality  which  is 
made  possible  by  the  unconsciousness  of  sleep. 

Why  is  it  then,  that  many  people  suffer  from  in- 
somnia? 

Many  physical  factors  are  generally  mentioned 
as  the  direct  causes  of  sleep  disturbances.  None 
of  them  should  be  dismissed  as  unimportant;  nor 
should  any  one  of  them,  however,  be  accepted  as 
an  exclusive  and  all-sufficient  explanation  of  sleep- 
lessness. 

Coffee,  tea  and  cocoa  (the  latter  even  in  the  shape 
of  chocolate  candy)  taken  in  large  quantities,  par- 
ticularly before  retiring,  affect  our  sympathetic  or 
safety  nerves.  They  make  us,  therefore,  more  sen- 
sitive to  slight  sound,  light,  pressure,  smell,  etc., 
stimuli,  which  under  ordinary  circumstances  we 
would  not  notice  consciously. 

In  other  words,  they  create  imaginary  "emer- 
gencies" which  require  the  usual  preparation  for 
fight  or  flight,  that  is,  keen  observation  of  our  en- 

[127] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

vironment,  arterial  tension,  etc.,  all  conditions 
which  make  sleep  impossible. 

Yet  we  cannot  say  that  coffee,  tea  or  cocoa,  with- 
out some  other  contributing  cause  would  always 
bring  about  sleep  disturbances. 

Bleuler  writes:  "I  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
drinking  every  night  several  cups  of  very  strong  tea 
which  never  prevented  me  from  sleeping.  Since  I 
have  had  the  influenza,  things  have  been  very  dif- 
ferent. I  must  be  careful  not  to  partake  of  such 
stimulants  before  going  to  bed.  But  even  then, 
their  effect  depends  on  my  mental  condition.  They 
affect  me  more  at  certain  times  than  they  do  at 
others.  If  I  am  the  least  bit  excited  their  effect 
is  increased.  When  I  am  perfectly  relaxed,  I  may 
not  feel  any  bad  effects." 

A  bedroom  into  whose  windows  flashes  of  light 
or  waves  of  sound  may  pour,  is  the  not  ideal  place 
in  which  to  seek  escape  from  reality.  Yet  thou- 
sands of  people  sleep  soundly  in  Pullman  berths  or 
even  in  day  coaches,  unmindful  of  the  noise,  light 
and  bustle. 

We  must  keep  in  mind  an  observation  made  by 
Bleuler  at  the  Zurich  clinic: 

"When  many  people  sleep  in  the  same  room,  as 
in  an  insane  asylum,  some  complain  that  they  can- 
not sleep  because  their  neighbour  is  snoring.  Who- 
[128] 


Sleeplessness 

ever  tries  to  prevent  the  snoring  or  to  move  the 
snorer  to  another  bed  will  have  an  endless  task. 
The  trouble  is  with  the  patient  who  is  disturbed  by 
snoring.  It  is  not  the  noise  itself  but  the  atten- 
tion he  pays  to  it  which  disturbs  him.  One  can 
see  in  wards  for  agitated  patients  most  of  the  pa- 
tients sleeping  peacefully  while  some  one  disturbs 
the  ward  with  the  most  savage  howling. 

"The  trouble  lies,  not  in  a  special  sensitiveness 
of  the  nervous  system,  but  in  the  attitude  we  take 
toward  a  certain  noise." 

Lack  of  exercise  during  the  day  will  often  cause 
us  to  toss  and  turn  many  times  in  our  bed  after  re- 
tiring. There  seems  to  be  in  every  living  being  a 
craving  for  activity  without  any  positive  aim,  activ- 
ity which  accomplishes  nothing  besides  using  up  un- 
used energy  or  relieving  certain  inhibitions. 

Children  and  all  young  animals  seem  to  be  un- 
able to  remain  motionless  for  any  length  of  time. 
In  children  and  puppies,  for  example,  the  gleeful 
shouts  and  barking  which  accompany  that  display 
of  muscular  activity  show  unmistakably  that  it 
vouchsafes  them  a  great  amount  of  gratification. 

The  satisfaction  of  the  free  activity  urge  which 
is  one  of  the  aspects  of  the  ego-power  urge  is  prob- 
ably submitted  to  a  strong  repression  in  men  and 
animals  at  a  rather  early  age  by  the  safety  urge; 

[129] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

frightened  children  and  animals  stop  playing  and 
become  at  times  paralysed  by  fear. 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  many  sluggish  in- 
dividuals who  lead  an  most  inactive  life  and  yet 
sleep  long  hours  without  any  interruption. 

Indigestion  causes  insomnia  and  so  does  hunger 
but  it  is  also  a  fact  that  many  indiscreet  eaters  are 
made  drowsy  by  their  very  indiscretion  and  sleep 
soundly  after  a  meal  which  would  distress  many 
other  people.  Also  we  find  in  the  sayings  of  many 
races  statements  to  the  effect  that  sleep  assuages 
hunger;  the  average  prisoner  sleeps  in  spite  of  the 
insufficient  meal  served  at  night  in  the  majority  of 
jails. 

Constipation  seems  at  times  to  bear  the  guilt  for 
restless  nights  and  so  do  cathartics  which,  with 
some  subjects,  produce  intestinal  tension  several 
times  during  the  night  but  whose  effect  is  not  no- 
ticeable in  other  subjects  until  they  wake  up  in  the 
morning  at  the  regular  time. 

Toothache  will  keep  some  people  awake  while 
others  will  go  to  sleep  in  order  to  forget  their  tooth- 
ache. 

Examples  of  that  sort  could  be  cited  ad  infinitum. 

In  case  of  sleeplessness,  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to 
remove  all  the  possible  physical  causes  which  can 
be  reached  directly  or  with  the  help  of  a  physician. 
[130] 


Sleeplessness 

Thyroid  irritation  for  instance  may  at  times  make 
one  more  sensitive  to  even  faint  noises  and  a  thor- 
ough medical  examination  should  be  undergone. 

The  dentature  should  be  examined  with  the  help 
of  X-ray  photography  in  order  that  pus  pockets, 
impaction,  and  other  defects,  not  observable  with 
the  naked  eye,  may  be  revealed  and  remedied. 

The  diet  should  be  regulated  so  as  to  exclude 
indigestible  foods  while  assuring,  especially  at 
night,  sufficient  nourishment. 

All  stimulants  should  be  avoided. 

A  walk  before  retiring  is  very  beneficial  in  all 
cases,  not  because  it  "tires"  the  subject,  but  because 
it  absorbs  the  chemical  products  thrown  into  the 
blood  for  emergencies  which  did  not  arise  in  the 
course  of  the  day.  A  long  walk  or  any  arduous 
exercise,  on  the  other  hand,  might  do  more  harm 
than  good  if  they  brought  about  the  phenomenon 
of  the  second  wind. 

Any  form  of  physical  or  mental  exercise  involv- 
ing rivalry  or  competition  is  to  be  avoided  at  night. 
The  excitement  caused  by  the  "fear  of  losing" 
would  again  fill  the  blood  with  "fight  or  flight" 
products.  Heated  discussions,  the  witnessing  of 
exciting  films  or  plays,  drives  with  a  daredevil 
chauffeur,  etc.,  are  not  conducive  to  peaceful  sleep. 

When  all  those  means  fail,  many  devices  have 

[131] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

been  offered  to  insomnia  sufferers,  such  as  prayer 
or  counting  sheep,  reading,  listening  to  some 
monotonous  stimulus  like  the  buzzing  of  a  faradic 
inductor,  or  of  an  electric  fan. 

A  distinction  must  be  made  between  stereotyped 
prayer  (such  as  the  Lord's  Prayer)  and  personal 
prayer  rehearsing  one's  worries  and  asking  for  help. 
The  latter  kind  is  not  unlikely  to  revive  all  the  day's 
problems  and  to  set  the  would-be-sleeper  solving 
them  over  again  at  the  very  time  when  he  should 
forget  them. 

The  repetition  of  some  passage  which  was  mem- 
orized in  childhood  and  which,  from  long  familiar- 
ity has  become  perfectly  impersonal,  may  go  a  long 
way  toward  creating  the  monotony,  and  hence  the 
feeling  of  safety,  without  which  there  cannot  be 
any  sleep. 

After  following  all  the  rules  I  have  laid  down 
a  number  of  people  will  still  be  unable  to  sleep. 
When  the  physico-psychic  causes  have  been  re- 
moved without  improving  the  condition  of  the  sub- 
ject, the  psychico-physical  factors  should  then  re- 
ceive attention. 

As  I  said  before,  normal  people  can  sleep  under 
almost  any  conditions  because  their  vagotonic  activi- 
ties function  regularly,  while  neurotics  cannot  sleep 
well  even  under  ideal  conditions  because  their  sym- 
[132] 


Sleeplessness 

pathicotonic  activities  are  constantly  raising  a  sig- 
nal danger  and  imagining  emergencies  amidst  the 
safest  surroundings,  mental  and  physical. 

The  insomnia  sufferer  is  suffering  from  some 
fear.  That  fear  has  to  be  determined  and  up- 
rooted by  psychoanalysis. 

Some  people  cannot  sleep  because  they  have  gone 
through  a  period  of  sleeplessness  and  expect  it  to 
endure  for  ever.  The  men  of  the  Emmanuel  move- 
ment often  had  the  following  experience:  a  sub- 
ject would  explain  that  he  could  not  sleep  under 
any  circumstances.  The  Emmanuel  healer  would 
ask  him  to  sit  in  a  chair  in  which,  he  said,  many 
people  had  fallen  asleep,  and  after  a  few  minutes 
of  soothing  conversation  or  concentration,  the  in- 
somniac would  doze  off  peacefully.  In  certain 
cases,  such  a  cure  may  be  permanent;  in  other 
cases,  when  the  results  are  obtained  through  trans- 
ference and  suggestion,  the  help  of  the  psychologi- 
cal adviser  or  hypnotist  may  be  too  frequently  re- 
quired. 

Other  subjects  are  prevented  from  sleeping  by 
"worry."  Telling  a  careworn  insomniac  not  to 
worry  is  as  silly  and  useless  as  telling  a  lovelorn 
person  to  stop  being  in  love. 

Discussing  a  patient's  worries  with  him,  how- 
ever, often  accomplishes  much  good,  for  it  com- 

[133] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

pels  him  to  sift  all  his  evidence,  which  may  be  con- 
vincing to  him  but  to  no  one  else.  The  worried 
person  who  is  beginning  to  experience  doubts  as  to 
the  magnitude  of  his  trouble,  is  like  the  patient 
suffering  from  delusions  who  has  lost  faith  in 
his  delusions. 

The  parasitic  fears  and  cravings  which  attach 
themselves  to  some  small  worry  and,  at  times,  mag- 
nify it  out  of  proportion,  may  in  such  a  way  be  dis- 
integrated and  dissociated  from  the  actual,  justi- 
fied fear. 

Giving  the  patient  "good  reasons"  why  he  should 
not  worry,  is  again  a  sort  of  suggestion  of  the  most 
futile  and  least  durable  type. 

Obsessive  fear  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  every 
worry  is  due  to  certain  complexes,  at  times  ap- 
parently unrelated  to  the  actual  disturbance,  and 
which  cannot  be  unearthed  and  uprooted  except  by  a 
thoroughgoing  psychological  analysis. 

This  is  especially  true  of  certain  cases  of  in- 
somnia which  the  patient  reports  as  follows.  "I 
fall  asleep  with  difficulty  and  with  a  certain  appre- 
hension. I  sleep  an  hour  or  two  during  which  I 
have  awful  dreams  which  I  cannot  remember. 
After  which  I  hardly  dare  to  close  my  eyes  again." 

This  is  what  I  would  call  the  fear  of  the  un- 
known nightmare,  and  the  anxiety  dreams  respon- 
[134] 


Sleeplessness 

sible  for  it  must  be  patiently  reconstituted  from  the 
scraps  which  invariably  linger  in  the  subject's  mem- 
ory, even  when  he  imagines  that  he  cannot  remem- 
ber any  dreams.  The  procedure  will  be  explained 
in  the  next  chapter. 

While  the  psychoanalytic  treatment  is  being  ap- 
plied, however,  the  patient  must  be  made  aware  of 
a  fact  which  will  comfort  him  to  a  certain  extent. 

Patients  often  fear  that  if  their  sleeplessness  is 
not  relieved  "at  once"  they  will  "loose  their  minds." 
Thereupon  they  beg  to  be  given  some  narcotic. 

We  must  remember  that  the  results  of  sleepless- 
ness depend  mostly  upon  the  attitude  which  we 
assume  toward  that  condition.  It  may  seem  para- 
doxical to  state  that  its  bad  results  are  mainly  due 
to  our  fear  of  them  but  it  is  true  nevertheless. 

We  assume  that  we  shall  be  exhausted  by  a  sleep- 
less night.  We  go  to  bed  in  fear  and  trembling, 
wondering  whether  we  will  or  will  not  sleep.  That 
anxiety  is  sufficient  to  liberate  secretions  which  pro- 
duce an  unpleasant  muscular  tension  and  a  desire 
for  activity.  This  keeps  us  awake  until  the  chem- 
ical contained  in  those  secretions  have  been  elim- 
inated. In  the  meantime,  we  develop  a  fit  of  anger 
which  releases  some  more  of  the  identical  chemicals. 
After  which  we  are  doomed  to  many  hours  of  un- 
rest and  agitation. 

[135] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

During  those  restless  hours  we  toss  about  angrily 
and  exhaust  ourselves  physically.  About  dawn, 
when  sleepiness  generally  overtakes  even  the  most 
restless,  we  finally  doze  off  and  are  awakened  by 
our  alarm  clock  or  some  other  familiar  disturb- 
ance and  once  more  relapse  into  anger  at  the  waste 
of  our  sleeping  hours  and  the  disability  which 
we  feel  is  sure  to  result  from  it. 

We  naturally  feel  worn  out.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  would  resign  ourselves  to  our  sleepless- 
ness, realize  that  rest,  even  in  the  waking  state, 
will  relieve  our  organism  of  all  its  "fatigue"  and 
that,  by  complete  relaxation  in  the  waking  state, 
we  can  liberate  almost  as  many  of  our  unconscious 
cravings  as  in  the  unconsciousness  of  sleep;  if  we 
were  as  careful  not  to  waste  uselessly  our  inner  se- 
cretions as  we  are  not  to  touch  live  wires,  we  would 
lie  down  as  motionlessly  as  possible,  and  would 
consign  to  the  scrap  heap  all  the  absurd  notions 
as  to  the  dire  results  of  a  sleepless  night;  we 
would  then  awaken  in  the  morning  as  refreshed 
by  the  two  or  three  hours  of  sleep  that  would 
finally  be  vouchsafed  us  as  by  the  usual  eight  or 
ten. 

The  amount  of  sleep  one  needs  varies  with  every 
individual  and  increases  or  decreases  according 
to  unconscious  requirements.  Hence,  statements  to 
[136] 


Sleeplessness 

the  effect  that  one  needs  eight  or  ten  hours'  sleep 
are  absurd  and  dangerous. 

Many  people  are  worried  over  the  fact  that  their 
sleep  is  irregular,  that  is,  that  they  sleep  six  hours 
one  night  and  ten  the  next  night  and  possibly  only 
four  hours  the  third  night. 

This  is  probably  as  it  should  be.  Our  require- 
ments vary  with  varying  conditions.  After  eating 
salt  fish  one  may  need  several  glasses  of  water  to 
slake  one's  thirst,  while  one  may  not  need  to  drink 
a  drop  of  any  liquid  after  partaking  of  juicy 
fruit. 

One  should  also  dismiss  as  an  idle  superstition 
the  dictum  according  to  which  sleep  before  midnight 
is  more  beneficial  than  sleep  after  midnight.  Hun- 
dreds of  newspapermen,  watchmen,  policemen, 
printers,  railroadmen,  etc.,  work  nights  and  sleep 
in  the  day  time  and  do  not  contribute  more  heavily 
than  other  professions  to  the  ranks  of  the  mentally 
deranged. 

Older  people,  whose  urges  are  at  low  ebb  and 
do  not  require  the  satisfaction  vouchsafed  by  dream 
life  should  become  reconciled  to  the  fact  that  they 
need  few  hours  sleep;  they  should  refrain  from 
taking  narcotics  and  go  to  bed  later  than  they  do, 
so  as  not  to  "lay  awake  all  night,"  which  gener- 
ally means  that  after  dozing  an  hour  or  two  in  an 

[137] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

armchair  and  retiring  at  ten  they  wake  up  normally 
about  one  or  two  in  the  morning. 

Sleep  is  important  in  health  but  even  more  so 
in  mental  disturbances.  The  solution  for  the  com- 
plicated problems  of  the  neurotic's  life  depends 
upon  the  wealth  of  facts  contained  in  the  uncon- 
scious rising  freely  to  the  surface  in  dreams  and 
relieving  the  uncertainty.  The  tragedy  is  that  ex- 
cept in  cases  of  sleeping  sickness,  the  neurotic 
who  needs  more  sleep  than  the  healthy  subject, 
generally  gets  much  less. 

The  neurotic  should  sleep  preferably  at  night 
and  avoid  day  sleep.  This  for  two  reasons.  He 
should  keep  in  touch  with  reality  when  reality  is 
active  and  obvious,  as  during  the  day.  With  the 
falling  of  the  shadows,  reality  acquires  a  tinge  of 
indefiniteness  which  lends  itself  to  many  misin- 
terpretations and  to  fancies  of  the  morbid  type. 

Sleeplessness  in  the  ghostly  hours  of  the  night  is 
a  poison  for  the  neurotic,  for  everything  at  such 
times  is  exaggerated,  distorted  and  the  slightest 
worry  is  transformed  into  a  terrible  danger.  Many 
children  could  be  spared  fits  of  "night  terrors"  if 
they  were  not  forced  to  go  to  bed  very  early,  after 
which  they  are  likely  to  wake  up  in  the  middle  of 
the  night,  disoriented  and  fearful. 

It  has  been  said  that  insomnia  was  the  cause 
[138] 


Sleeplessness 

of  insanity  and  experiments  such  as  those  made 
at  the  University  of  Iowa  show  that  men  kept  awake 
for  a  prolonged  period  of  time  begin  to  have  de- 
lusions and  hallucinations  similar  to  those  of  de- 
mentia praecox.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  men  who  submitted  to  those  experiments  were 
not  allowed  to  "res^." 

The  contrary  proposition,  that  is,  that  insomnia 
is  induced  by  insanity  is  more  plausible  psychologi- 
cally. 

And  indeed  every  psychiatrist  has  made  the  ob- 
servation that  some  insane  people  sleep  very  lit- 
tle, so  little  in  fact  that  such  protracted  periods  of 
sleeplessness  would  kill  the  average  normal  per- 
son. That  observation  has  been  confirmed  by  Bleu- 
ler,  who  as  the  head  of  the  Zurich  psychiatric  clinic 
and  one  of  the  most  tireless  psychological  experi- 
menters in  the  world,  is  in  a  position  to  speak  with 
authority. 

Neurotics  sleep  very  little,  and  the  more  severe 
their  case  is,  the  less  they  sleep.  Return  of  normal 
sleep  generally  coincides  with  a  cure  and  has  been 
by  many  credited  with  bringing  about  the  cure. 
Hence  the  many  "rest  cures"  suggested  for  the  men- 
tally disturbed  patient. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  absolutely 
insane  person  who  lives  all  his  absurd  dreams  in 

[139] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

his  waking  life  no  longer  needs  the  unconsciousness 
which  the  normal  individual  requires  in  order  to 
escape  from  reality.  The  insane  man  who  knows 
he  is  a  combination  of  a  Don  Juan,  a  millionaire 
and  a  powerful  ruler,  need  not  dream  of  becoming 
all  those  characters.  He  has  attained  his  goal  and 
it  is  only  the  continued  conflicts  with  reality  which 
may  reach  his  consciousness  in  his  lucid  moments 
which  necessitate  the  unconsciousness  of  a  few  min- 
utes or  hours  of  sleep  in  which  reality  no  longer 
intrudes  into  his  absurd  world. 

Since  insomniacs  can  rest  without  sleep  and  in- 
somnia does  not  lead  to  insanity,  there  is  no  rea- 
son why  narcotics  should  be  administered.  There 
is  a  very  good  reason  on  the  other  hand  why  they 
should  never  be  administered  except  in  case  some 
harrowing  pain  has  to  be  relieved  and  shock 
avoided. 

For  one  thing,  their  effect  is  problematic  and 
depends  also  to  a  great  extent  from  the  subject's 
mental  condition. 

Kraepelin  noticed  that  large  doses  of  alcohol 
failed  to  produce  the  usual  muscular  lameness 
in  subjects  who  were  agitated.  Bleuler  makes  the 
interesting  suggestion  that  our  central  nervous  sys- 
tem only  "accepts"  narcotics  when  they  are 
"wanted"  and  keeps  drugs,  carried  about  in  the 
[140] 


Sleeplessness 

blood  stream,  from  being  assimilated  by  the  organ- 
ism when  the  organism  is  not  "willing"  to  submit 
to  their  influence. 

But  the  most  cogent  reason  why  narcotics  should 
never  be  resorted  to  in  "nervous"  sleeplessness  is 
that  they  do  not  relax  the  organism  but  paralyse  it 
by  killing  it  partly.  If  they  only  dulled  conscious- 
ness and  freed  the  unconscious,  they  would  accom- 
plish some  good  but  we  do  not  know  of  any  agent 
besides  sleep,  which  accomplishes  that  successfully. 

Narcotics  partly  kill  both  consciousness  and  un- 
conscious. While  their  eff'ect  lasts,  the  very  phe- 
nomenon which  makes  the  neurotic  a  neurotic  is 
exaggerated.  In  the  neurotic's  waking  state,  un- 
conscious complexes  manage  to  free  themselves, 
somewhat  indirectly.  In  the  stupor  of  drugged 
sleep,  the  repression  is  complete.  Hence  the  hor- 
rible feeling  which  is  often  experienced  when 
awakening  from  drug-induced  sleep.  Normal 
sleep  is  brother  to  life,  but  drug  induced  sleep  is 
indeed  akin  to  death. 

Neither  can  hypnotic  suggestion  be  recommended 
as  a  cure  for  sleeplessness,  except  of  course,  in 
emergencies. 

About  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  Swed- 
ish physician,  Wetterstrand,  inaugurated  a  method 
of  treatment  which  was  founded  on  a  just  estimate 

[141] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

of  the  value  of  sleep,  although  Wetterstrand  himself 
could  not  at  the  time  have  understood  the  psychol- 
ogy of  it. 

He  had  in  Upsala  a  "house  of  sleep"  furnished 
with  innumerable  divans  and  couches  on  which  his 
patients  were  allowed  to  rest  for  hours  in  hypnotic 
sleep. 

Of  course  this  procedure  had  two  glaring  de- 
fects: hypnotism  is  a  neurotic  phenomenon  which 
should  not  be  applied  to  the  treatment  of  a  neuro- 
sis and,  secondly,  sleep  in  the  daytime  is  generally 
enjoyed  at  the  expense  of  the  night's  sleep. 

At  the  same  time,  the  sleep  which  patients  en- 
joyed in  Wetterstrand' s  "Grotto  of  Sleep,"  as  it 
was  called  at  the  time,  must  have  been  of  a  some- 
what curative  kind ;  for  the  house  was  as  silent  as  a 
grave.  Thick  carpets  deadened  all  sounds  and  all 
the  lights  were  dimmed.  No  stimuli  were  allowed 
to  produce  in  the  sleepers  any  fear  reactions. 

What  Wetterstrand  really  supplied  to  his  pa- 
tients was  an  ideal  bedroom  and  an  opportunity  for 
an  absolutely  uninterrupted  sleep  of  several  hours. 
We  do  not  know,  however,  how  many  of  them  were 
robbed  of  the  effect  of  such  an  ideal  environment 
by  the  anxiety  dreams  which  the  quietest  bedroom 
cannot  exclude. 

The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  what  has  been 
[142] 


Sleeplessness 


said  in  the  preceding  chapters  is  that  the  real  mis- 
sion of  sleep  is  to  free  the  unconscious,  to  relieve 
the  tension  due  to  repressions  and  to  give  absolutely 
free  play  to  the  organic  activities  which  build  up  the 
individual. 

Hence  the  goal  is  sleep  of  sufficient  duration, 
sleep  undisturbed  by  physical  stimuli,  sleep  full 

OF  DREAMS  but  FREE  FROM  NIGHTMARES. 

No  more  potent  curative  agent  could  be  found 
than  that  kind  of  sleep,  whether  the  ills  to  be  rem- 
edied are  of  a  "mental"  or  of  a  "physical"  nature. 
Not  until  all  the  fear-creating  complexes  have  been 
disintegrated  by  psychoanalysis,  however,  can  the 
insomniac  hope  to  enjoy  that  perfect  form  of 
"rest." 


[143] 


CHAPTER  XVII:  DREAM  INTERPRETATION 

Dream  interpretation  is  not  an  idle  pastime  or  a 
mysterious  performance.  Carried  out  in  accord- 
ance with  certain  scientific  rules  based  on  common 
sense  and  not  on  mere  theory,  it  has  a  positive  value 
in  health  as  well  as  in  sickness. 

A  nightmare  whose  meaning  has  been  interpreted 
rightly  ceases  to  be  a  nightmare.  It  disappears,  or 
rather,  is  replaced  by  an  obvious  wish-fulfilment 
dream  of  the  same  import,  which  does  not  disturb 
sleep. 

The  same  modifica1:ion  is  observable  in  recur- 
rent dreams  which,  while  not  burdened  with  anxiety, 
may  have  puzzled  us  and  created  a  certain  appre- 
hension. 

Insight  into  our  own  dreams  enables  us  to  release 
more  completely  the  unconscious  cravings  which  it 
is  the  mission  of  sleep  to  free  from  the  repressions 
of  waking  life. 

The  technique  of  dream  interpretation  is  unfor- 
tunately, like  every  detail  of  the  psychoanalytic 
technique,  very  slow  and  at  times  discouraging. 
The  layman  trained  by  quack  literature  to  expect 
[144] 


Dream  Interpretation 


quick  results,  is  apt  to  appear  scornful  when  a  con- 
gcientious  analyst,  asked  to  interpret  offhand  an 
apparently  simple  dream,  refuses  to  perform  that 
task  and  confesses  that  he  does  not  know  the  mean- 
ing of  it. 

When  little  Anna  Freud  dreamt  that  she  was 
feasting  on  all  sorts  of  dainties,  no  elaborate  tech- 
nique was  needed  to  ferret  out  the  enigma  of  such 
a  vision.  When  Ferenczi's  patient,  however,  saw 
herself  strangling  a  white  dog,  the  wish-fulfilment 
formula,  applied  indiscriminately,  would  have 
given  poor  results. 

To  the  patient,  the  white  dog  symbolized  a 
snarling  woman  with  a  very  pale  face. 

Dream  interpretation  must  never  be  attempted 
without  the  dreamer's  assistance. 

Snakes  are  almost  always  sexual  symbols,  but 
if  on  the  day  preceding  the  dream  the  subject 
was  frightened  by  a  snake  or  killed  one  or  played 
with  one,  we  should  require  a  good  deal  of  other 
evidence  before  we  could  safely  assert  that  a  snake 
dream  on  that  night  indicated  fear,  desire  or  repres- 
sion of  sexual  cravings. 

A  tooth  pulling  dream  related  by  a  subject  who 
expects  to  go  through  the  ordeal  of  dental  extraction 
should  not  be  hastily  admitted  to  be  a  symbolical 
dream. 

[145] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

Even  apparently  obvious  dreams  may  assume  an 
entirely  different  complexion  when  we  inquire  into 
the  associations  which  every  detail  of  them  conjures 
up  from  the  subject's  unconscious. 

A  year  ago  or  so  a  Chicago  woman  sued  her  hus- 
band for  divorce  because  he  had  been,  while  talk- 
ing in  his  sleep,  saying  endearing  things  to  his 
stenographer.  That  woman  was  both  right  and 
wrong. 

The  fact  that  her  husband  dreamt  of  his  stenog- 
rapher was  evidence  that  the  girl  was  "on  his  mind," 
consciously  or  unconsciously.  But  we  could  not, 
without  examining  the  husband's  unconscious  reac- 
tions decide  to  what  extent  the  stenographer  herself, 
as  a  distinct  personality,  obsessed  him. 

Every  man  is  more  or  less  of  a  f  etichist,  irresisti- 
bly attracted  by  certain  details  of  the  feminine 
body,  for  ever  seeking  those  characteristics  and 
appreciating  them  above  all  others  wherever  found. 
When  only  one  such  characteristic  and  no  other  at- 
tracts a  man,  the  man  is  known  as  a  perverse  feti- 
chist. 

When  the  various  fetiches  which  attract  a  man  are 
found  in  one  woman,  let  us  say  red  hair,  dark  eyes 
and  a  slender  build,  we  have  the  foundation  for 
a  passionate  and  durable  love. 

When  only  one  of  those  characteristics  is  found 
[146] 


Dream  Interpretation 


in  a  woman,  that  characteristic  is  bound  to  attract 
the  man's  attention  regardless  of  the  interest  or 
lack  of  interest  the  woman  may  present  for  him. 
A  red  haired  woman,  while  otherwise  totally  un- 
attractive, might,  to  a  red  hair  fetichist,  symbolize 
the  beauty  he  seeks  and  intrude  into  his  dream 
pictures,  although  she  personally  could  not  attract 
him  sexually  in  his  waking  state. 

Every  one  has  had  the  experience  of  embracing 
in  dreams  some  person  who  in  the  waking  state 
would  not  inspire  the  dreamer  with  any  desire.  If 
we  analyse  carefully  the  appearance  of  the  "ghostly 
love"  we  will  in  every  case  notice  that  he  or  she  is 
endowed  with  a  certain  characteristic  which  is  one 
of  the  constituting  elements  of  our  "love  image." 

The  Chicago  woman  should  have  taken  her 
troubles  to  an  analyst,  not  to  a  judge. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  on  that  example  to  show 
a  few  of  the  pitfalls  which  threaten  the  careless 
interpreter  of  dreams. 

The  second  rule  I  would  formulate  is  this:  Do 
not  try  to  interpret  one  dream.  Wait  until  you 
have  collected  a  large  number  of  dreams,  let  us 
say,  twenty  or  thirty  of  them. 

Then  classify  them  according  to  their  character 
as  follows: 

Pleasant  and  unpleasant  dreams.     Healthy  and 

[147] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

morbid.  Masochistic  and  sadistic.  Childish  or 
adult.  Regressive,  static  or  progressive.  Positive 
or  negative.  Varied  or  recurrent.  Personal  or 
typical.  Hypnogogic  and  hypnapagogic  visions, 
etc. 

Care  must  be  taken  then  to  note  all  the  words  and 
thoughts  which  appear  most  frequently  in  many 
dreams  and  which  are  likely  to  refer  to  important 
complexes. 

Whenever  possible  two  versions  of  each  dream 
should  be  studied. 

The  subject  should  write  down  his  dreams  as  soon 
as  he  wakes  up,  either  in  the  morning  or  right  after 
an  anxiety  dream  which  may  have  disturbed  him  in 
the  course  of  the  night. 

The  version  of  almost  any  important  dream 
which  the  subject  tells  the  analyst  will  be  found 
quite  at  variance  with  the  version  written  immedi- 
ately after  awakening. 

Here  is  a  dream  reported  orally  to  me  by  a 
patient. 

"I  saw  you  through  a  restaurant  window,  having 
lunch  with  your  wife." 

Here  is  the  same  dream  as  I  found  it  in  the 
patient  notes: 

"You  were  to  deliver  a  lecture  in  a  park.  There 
was  a  number  of  good  looking  girls  there.  One  es- 
[148] 


Dream  Interpretation 


pecially  attracted  my  attention.  As  there  was  quite 
a  little  mud  in  the  park  she  wore  rubber  boots. 
You  were  late  in  appearing  and  I  went  to  look  for 
you.  I  saw  you  sitting  at  a  table  in  a  resturant 
with  your  wife,  waving  to  some  acquaintance  on  the 
side  walk." 

The  discrepancy  between  the  two  versions  is 
quite  amusing. 

After  that  preparatory  work  of  classification  and 
comparison,  the  actual  work  of  interpretation  can 
begin. 

Hebbel  once  wrote:  "If  a  man  could  make  up 
his  mind  TO  write  down  all  his  dreams,  without 

ANY  EXCEPTIONS  OR  RESERVATIONS,  TRUTHFULLY 
AND  WITHOUT  OMITTING  ANY  DETAILS,  TOGETHER 
WITH  A  RUNNING  COMMENTARY  CONTAINING  ALL 
THE  EXPLANATIONS  OF  HIS  DREAMS  WHICH  HE  COULD 
DERIVE  FROM  HIS  LIFE  MEMORIES  AND  FROM  HIS 
READING,  he  would  make  to  mankind  a  present  of 
inestimable  value.  But  as  long  as  mankind  is  what 
it  is,  no  one  is  likely  to  do  that." 

The  technique  of  dream  interpretation  could  not 
have  been  described  more  accurately  nor  more 
aptly. 

The  person  whose  dreams  are  to  be  analysed 
should  relax  completely,  stretched  out  on  a  couch 
in  a  quiet  room,  listening  for  a  while  to  some 

[149] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

monotonous  noise  such  as  the  buzzing  of  a  fan  or 
of  an  inductor,  his  mind  concentrated  on  the  story 
of  the  dream. 

Then  he  should  tell  in  a  rambling  way,  without 
trying  to  edit  the  things  that  rise  to  his  conscious- 
ness, all  the  associations  of  ideas  connected  with 
every  word  of  the  dream.  While  we  can  interpret 
our  own  dreams  and  jot  down  our  own  ideas,  the 
assistance  of  some  sympathetic,  discreet  person 
makes  the  process  much  simpler.  Jotting  down 
notes  detracts  one's  attention  from  the  images  ris- 
ing to  consciousness. 

The  assistant,  however,  should  confine  himself  to 
mentioning  the  next  word  or  the  next  part  of  the 
dream  as  soon  as  the  subject  seems  to  have  ex- 
hausted the  associations  brought  forth  by  one  part 
of  it. 

The  most  surprising  results  are  often  obtained  in 
that  simple  way.  Facts  which  the  subject  had  en- 
tirely forgotten,  connections  he  had  never  been 
aware  of,  will  suddenly  jump  into  consciousness; 
the  dream  will  gradually  assume  a  meaning  and  its 
interpretation  may  at  times  reach  an  unexpected 
length.  A  dream  of  one  line  may  suggest  associa- 
tions covering  five  or  six  pages. 

It  may  happen  that  in  spite  of  the  subject's  efforts 
to  remember  his  dreams  and  of  devices  such  as 
[150] 


Dream  Interpretation 


being  awakened  in  the  course  of  the  night,  etc.,  the 
only  memories  preserved  of  the  night's  visions  will 
be  scraps  such  as  "going  somewhere,"  "talking  to 
somebody,"  "something  unpleasant,"  etc. 

In  such  cases,  the  subject  should  be  allowed  to 
sink  into  what  Boris  Sidis  calls  "hypnoidal  sleep" 
by  being  made  to  listen  to  some  continuous  noise  in 
a  partly  darkened  room,  all  the  while  thinking  of 
the  "dream  scrap." 

"While  in  this  hypnoidal  state,"  Sidis  writes, 
"the  patient  hovers  between  the  conscious  and  the 
subconscious,  somewhat  in  the  same  way  as  in  the 
drowsy  condition,  one  hovers  between  wakefulness 
and  sleep.  The  patient  keeps  on  fluctuating  from 
moment  to  moment,  now  falling  more  deeply  into 
a  subconscious  condition  in  which  outlived  experi- 
ences are  easily  aroused,  and  again  rising  to  the 
level  of  the  waking  state.  Experiences  long  sub- 
merged and  forgotten  rise  to  the  full  height  of  con- 
sciousness. They  come  in  bits,  in  chips,  in  frag- 
ments, which  may  gradually  coalesce  and  form  a 
connected  series  of  interrelated  systems  of  experi- 
ences apparently  long  dead  and  buried.  The  resur- 
rected experiences  then  stand  out  clear  and  distinct 
in  the  patient's  mind.  The  recognition  is  fresh, 
vivid,  and  instinct  with  life,  as  if  the  experiences 
had  occurred  the  day  before." 

[151] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

Through  this  procedure,  patients  are  often  en- 
abled to  recollect  forgotten  dreams  and  nightmares. 

Certain  patients  do  not  forget  their  dreams  but 
refuse  to  report  them.  In  such  cases  the  simplest 
procedure  consists  in  asking  the  patient  to  make  up 
a  dream  while  in  the  analyst's  office,  that  is  to  put 
himself  in  the  hypnoidal  state  described  above  and 
to  tell  the  images  and  thoughts  that  come  to  his 
mind.  Or  if  the  analyst  suspects  the  existence  of 
a  certain  complex,  he  may  ask  the  patient  to  build 
up  a  dream  on  a  topic  so  selected  that  it  will  touch 
that  complex. 

A  question  which  audiences  have  asked  me  hun- 
dreds of  times  is:  "Cannot  the  patient  make  up 
something  that  will  deceive  you  entirely  and  throw 
you  on  the  wrong  trail?" 

My  answer  to  such  a  question  is  emphatically 
negative. 

A  study  of  the  literary  and  artistic  productions 
of  all  races  has  shown  that  in  every  "story"  and  in 
every  work  of  art,  the  writer  or  artist  was  solely 
bringing  to  consciousness  his  own  preoccupations,  in 
a  form  which  may  have  deceived  him  but  which  does 
not  deceive  the  psychologist  slightly  familiar  with 
the  author's  biography. 

Brill  tells  somewhere  how  his  attention  was  first 
[152] 


Dream  Interpretation 


drawn  to  the  value  of  artificial  dreams  and  of  so 
called  "fake  dreams." 

In  1908,  he  was  treating  an  out  of  town  physician, 
suffering  from  severe  anxiety  hysteria.  The  pa- 
tient was  very  sceptical,  did  not  co-operate  with 
Brill,  never  talked  freely  and  pretended  he  never 
had  dreams.  One  morning,  however,  he  came  for 
his  appointment  bringing  at  last  one  dream.  "He 
had  given  birth  to  a  child  and  felt  severe  labour 
pains.  X.,  a  gynecologist  who  assisted  him,  was 
unusually  rough  and  stuck  the  forceps  into  him 
more  like  a  butcher  than  a  physician." 

It  was  a  homosexual  fancy.  Asked  who  X.  was, 
the  patient  said  he  was  a  friend  with  whom  he  had 
had  some  unpleasantness. 

Then  he  interrupted  the  conversation,  saying: 
"There  is  no  use  fooling  you  any  longer.  What  I 
told  you  was  not  a  dream.  I  just  made  it  up  to 
show  you  how  ridiculous  your  dream  theories  are." 

Further  examination,  however,  proved  that  the 
patient  was  homosexual  and  that  his  anxiety  states 
were  due  to  the  cessation  of  his  perverse  relations 
with  X.  The  lie  he  had  made  up  was  simply  a 
distorted  wish  closely  connected  with  the  cause  of 
his  neurosis. 

As  Brill  states  very  justly,  "everything  which 

[153] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

necessitates  lying  must  be  of  importance  to  the 
individual  concerned." 

Personally,  I  have  found  that,  with  certain  pa- 
tients, the  artificial  dream  method  is  productive  of 
better  results  than  the  free  association  method. 
With  the  docile  patient  who  has  much  insight  and  a 
positive  desire  to  rid  himself  of  his  troubles,  the  as- 
sociation method  reveals  quickly  the  darkest  comers 
of  the  unconscious.  The  patient  who,  on  the  other 
hand,  constantly  answers:  "I  cannot  think  of  any- 
thing," and  is  always  on  his  guard,  the  association 
method  wastes  much  valuable  time  and  is  very  dis- 
couraging to  patient  and  analyst. 

It  is  not  always  advisable  for  the  analyst  to  re- 
veal to  his  subjects  the  import  of  their  dreams. 
It  is  especially  when  the  meaning  of  their  dreams 
is  frankly  sexual  that  discretion  and  tact  are  neces- 
sary. In  cases  of  a  severe  repression  of  sexual 
cravings  extending  over  many  years,  when,  for  in- 
stance, one  has  to  deal  with  a  woman,  no  longer 
young  and  whose  attitude  to  life  has  been  rather 
puritanical,  a  good  deal  of  educational  work  has  to 
be  undertaken  before  the  subject  can  be  enlight- 
ened. 

She  must  be  gradually  led  to  consider  sex  as  a 
"natural"  phenomenon  before  she  can  be  made  to 
[154] 


Dream  Interpretation 


accept  the  sexual  components  revealed  by  her 
dreams  as  a  part  of  her  personality. 

Repressed  homosexualism  is  perhaps  even  harder 
to  reveal  to  the  subject. 

I  have  found  my  task  infinitely  simpler  when  the 
subject  had  done  a  good  deal  of  reading  along 
psychoanalytic  lines  or  had  attended  many  lectures 
on  the  subject.  In  fact  it  is  my  conviction  that 
when  psychoanalytic  books  are  read  by  a  larger 
proportion  of  the  population,  thousands  of  "sex" 
cases  will  disappear,  together  with  the  absurd  fears 
based  on  ignorance  which  are  responsible  for  many 
a  mental  upset. 

Interpreting  a  subject's  dreams  is  the  best  known 
means  of  probing  and  sounding  his  unconscious,  but 
in  the  majority  of  cases  it  only  helps  indirectly  in 
treating  the  case.  When  we  deal  with  nightmares, 
however,  the  results  are  more  direct  and  more 
rapidly  attained.  A  nightmare  interpreted  rightly 
will  never  recur,  or  if  it  does,  will  not  frighten 

OR  AWAKEN  THE  SUBJECT. 

Insight  will  develop  which,  even  in  the  sleeping 
state,  will  enable  the  subject  to  recognize  that  his 
dream  is  only  a  dream  and  to  sleep  on  undisturbed. 
A  patient  who  was  often  terrorized  by  a  dream  in 
which  some  man  stabbed  him  in  the  back,  gradually 
[155] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

came  to  recognize  his  unconscious  homosexual  lean- 
ings and  analysed  the  nightmare  in  his  sleep  when 
it  occurred  again  with  excellent  results.  It  did  not 
frighten  him  and  gradually  disappeared,  being  re- 
placed by  grosser  dreams  devoid  of  anxiety. 

A  patient  was  bothered  by  dreams  in  which  he 
was  repelling  onslaughts  of  large  beasts  with  a 
walking  stick  or  an  umbrella  which  invariably 
broke  and  which  he  was  always  trying  to  tip  with 
iron  rods  or  tacks. 

He  finally  gained  insight  into  his  unconscious 
fear  of  impotence  which  was  dispelled  by  a  visit 
at  a  specialist's  office. 

Not  only  did  that  nightmare  disappear  but  very 
soon  after,  his  dreams  changed  to  visions  of  success- 
ful sex-gratification. 

Dream  insight  based  upon  the  personality  of  the 
analyst  should  not  be  considered  as  real  insight. 
When  a  patient  reports,  "I  dreamt  that  I  was  a  baby 
but  remembered  that  Mr.  Tridon  would  call  that  a 
regression  dream  and  I  awoke,"  or,  "I  felt  that  Mr. 
Tridon  would  characterize  the  whole  thing  as  a 
masochistic  performance  and  awoke,"  much  work 
remains  to  be  done. 

The  dreamer  must  know  that  his  nightmare  is 
a  symbol  and  not  merely  know  that  his  analyst 
would  call  it  a  symbol. 
[156] 


Dream  Interpretation 


When  the  dreamer  has  acquired  the  technical 
skill  which  enables  him,  after  a  little  concentration 
and  meditation,  to  interpret  his  own  sleep  visions, 
he  is  no  longer  at  the  mercy  of  the  annoyance  called 
nightmare.  When  he  can  see  at  a  glance  where  the 
repression  seems  unbearable,  he  may  devise  ways 
and  means  to  satisfy  his  cravings  more  completely 
if  they  are  justifiable  and  lawful;  if  they  are  un- 
justifiable or  socially  taboo,  he  may  seek  substitutes 
for  them  and,  especially  as  I  have  explained  in  an- 
other book,  free  them  from  the  parasitic  cravings 
which  make  them  unduly  obsessive. 

He  who  can  read  the  indications  of  his  own 
dreams,  has  at  his  disposal  an  instrument  of  great 
precision  which  indicates  to  him  the  slightest  fluc- 
tuations of  his  personality  and,  besides,  points  out 
various  solutions  for  the  problems  of  adaptation 
which  the  normal,  progressive  human  being  must 
solve  every  day  of  his  life. 

Oneiromancy  is  the  algebra  which  enables  us  to 
perform  rapidly  complicated  calculations  in  the 
mathematics  of  psychology. 


[157] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Abrahamson,  I. — Mental  disturbances  in  lethargic  en- 
cephalitis. Journal  of  Nervous  and  Mental  Disease. 
September  1920. 

A  study   of  the  sleeping  sickness  based  mainly 
upon  cases  observed  at  Mt.  Sinai  Hospital. 
Abraham,  K. — Dreams  and  Myths.     Nervous  and  Mental 
Disease  Monograph  Series.     No.  28. 

A  monograph  proving  that  legends  and  myths  are 
in  reality  the  day  dreams  of  the  human  race. 
Adler,  a. — Traum  and  Traumdeutung.     Zentralhlatt  f. 
Ps.  A.  Ill,  p.  574. 

A  short  essay  on  dream  interpretation  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  ego  urge. 
AscHAFFENBURG,    G. — Der    Schlaf    in    Kindesalter    und 
seine  Storungen.     Bergmann,  Wiesbaden. 

Observations  on  the  disturbances  of  the  sleep  of 
children. 
Bruce,  H.  A. — Sleep  and  Sleeplessness.     Little  Brown. 
A  popular  expose  of  the  problem  of  sleeplessness 
from  a  modern  point  of  view. 
CORIAT,    I. — The    Meaning    of    Dreams.     Little    Brown 
A  small  book  containing  the  analyses  of  many 
dreams  according  to  the  Freudian  technique. 
CoRiAT,  I. — The  Nature  of  Sleep.     Journal  of  Abnormal 

Psycho.     VI.  No.  5 
CoRiAT,  I. — The  Evolution  of  Sleep  and  Hypnosis. 

Ibidem,  VII.  No.  2. 
[158] 


Bibliography 


Deiage,    Y. — La    nature    des    images    hypnagogiques. 
Bulletin  de  V  Inst.  Gen.     Psycho.     1903,  p.  235. 
Du    Prel,    Carl. — Kiinstliche    Traume.     Sphinx,    July 
1889. 

A  study  of  artificial  dreams. 
Freud,  S. — ^The  Interpretation  of  Dreams.     Macmillan. 
Freud,  S. — Dream  Psychology,  with  an  introduction  by 
Andre  Tridon.     McCann. 

The  most  important  books  on  Dream  Interpreta- 
tion. 
Fromner,  E. — Das  Problem  des  Schlafs. 

Bergmann,  Wiesbaden. 
Henning,  H. — Der  Traum  ein  assoziativer  Kurzschluss. 

Bergmann,  Wiesbaden. 
Maury,  A. — Le  Sommeil  et  les  Reves.     Paris  1878. 

The  first  attempt  at  a  methodical  study  of  dreams 
and  at  correlating  them  to  physical  stimuli. 
Maeder,   a.   E. — The   Dream   Problem.     Nervous    and 
Mental  Disease  monograph  series.     No.  22. 

A  presentation  of  the  subject  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Swiss  School. 
Hall,  B.— The  Psychology  of  sleep.     Moffat  Yard. 

A  review  of  the  various  sleep  theories  from  the 
academic  point  of  view. 
Kaplan,     L. — Ueber     wiederkehrende     Traumsymbole. 
Zentrablatt  /.  Ps.  A.  IV,  p.  284. 
An  essay  on  dream  symbolism. 
Manaceine,  M.   de| — Sleep,   its  physiology,   pathology, 
hygiene  and  psychology.     Scribner. 

The  most  complete  study  of  sleep  from  every  pos- 
sible point  of  view,  placing  the  emphasis,  however, 
on  the  physical  aspects  of  sleep. 

[159] 


Psychoanalysis,  Sleep  and  Dreams 

Sachs,     H. — Traumdeutimg     und     Menschenkenntniss. 

Jahrb.  d.  Ps,  A.  Ill,  p.  121. 
ScHROTTER,   K. — ^Experimentelle   Traume.     Zentralhlatt 

/.  Psy.  A,     II,  p.  638. 

A  record  of  very  interesting  experiments  in  the 

production  of  artificial  dreams  through  hypnotism. 
SiLBERER,  H. — Der  Traum  Enke.     Stuttgart. 

A  very  clear  primer  in  dream  study,  epitomizing 

the  latest  hypotheses  in  interpretation. 
SiLBERER,  H. — Ueber  die  Symbolbildung.     Jahrbuch  d, 

Psy-A.     Ill,  p.  661. 
SiLBERER,  H. — ^Zur  Symbolbildung.     Jahrbuch  d.  Psy-A. 

IV,  p.  607. 
SiLBERER,    H. — Bericht    liber    eine   methode   Hallucina- 

tionserscheinungen      herbeizurefen.      Jahrbuch      d. 

Psy.-A.     I,  p.  513. 
Stekel,   W. — Die   Sprache   des   Traimaes.     Wiesbaden, 

1911. 
Stekel,    W. — Die    Traiime    der    Dichter.     Wiesbaden, 

1912. 
Stekel,  W. — Fortschritte  in  der  Traumdeutung.     Zen- 

tralblatt  f.  Psy-A,     III,  pp.  154,  426. 
Stekel,  W. — Individuelle  Traumsymbole.     Zentralblatt 

f.  Psy-A,     IV,  p.  289. 

Stekel  is  essentially  a  Freudian  but  his  books  con- 
tain  hundreds   of  illustrations   and   case  histories, 

making  his  books  more  understandable  to  laymen 

than  Freud's  writings. 

"Die  Sprache  des  Traumes"  is  the  most  useful 

text  book  of  Symbol  Study. 
Tridon,   a. — Psychoanalysis,    Its   History,   Theory   and 

Practice.     Huebsch. 
[160] 


Bibliography 

See  Chapter  V:     Symbols,  the  language  of  the 
dreams,  and  Chapter  VI :     The  dreams  of  the  human 
race. 
Tridon,  a. — Psychoanalysis  and  Behaviour.     Knopf. 

See  part  IV,  chapter  II :     Self-knowledge  through 
dream  study. 
Tridon,  A. — Introduction  to   Freud's  "Dream  Psychol- 
ogy."    McCann. 
VOLD,  J.  M.— Ueber  den  Traum.     Leipzig  1910-1912. 

Void   holds   that   every   dream    is   caused    by    a 
physical  stimulus. 
Vaschide,  N. — Le  Sommeil  et  les  Reves.     Paris,  1911. 
A  physical  explanation  of  sleep  and  dreams. 


[1611 


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Psychoanalysis,  sleep  and  dreaiTis 


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